Rossi: First crash clear, second unexpected

Valentino Rossi labelled the first day of MotoGP running at Valencia “difficult” after two crashes disrupted his running and limited him to a disappointing 14^th place overall.

The 40-year old admitted his FP1 fall at turn four was a clear mistake on his part as he pushed for a time late on. A similar spill in the afternoon at turn ten was more vexing however, with Rossi struggling to explain what had gone wrong.

“It's a difficult day, because I crashed two times,” he began. “And here in Valencia, it's always very dangerous on the right. You need to keep paying attention, especially with this temperature that is like winter time.

“This morning it was a shame, because I was quite fast, and sincerely I made a mistake, a stupid mistake, because I had the soft front, but I pushed a little bit too much already in the first lap, and I crashed.

“So this afternoon I tried to stay a bit more quiet, I had the medium front, but the crash of this afternoon was more strong, because a higher speed. But especially it happened after seven or eight laps, so sincerely, I didn't expect. Now we check on the data to try to understand.

“Apart from the crash, my pace is not so bad. Always here in Valencia is difficult, but I feel quite well with the bike. We need to decide the right tyres, and especially we need to make a good lap tomorrow morning to stay in the top ten. Because it will be very important to be in Q2 for the afternoon.

“The first crash is more clear, also on the data you can see the temperature of the tyre is not ready. I tried to arrive more slowly, but unfortunately not enough for the first flying lap, and I crashed. This happened.

“But the second crash, sincerely, we checked and I didn't do anything different from the lap before. It was already lap 7 or lap 8. For sure here, with the medium front, everyone is at the limit, because the temperature of the asphalt is very low, and that corner is very dangerous because you arrive after a lot of lefts.

“Maybe this is the problem, afterwards we will check more deeply. For me, I have a lot of margin to improve, because sincerely I don't make a time attack this afternoon.

“After the crash I restart with the soft tyre, but sincerely, I made ten laps to try the pace, because it's very difficult to start for the time attack after a crash, you need some laps to come back.

“So I have margin to improve. It will be hard, because everybody is really close, but we have to try to stop in the top 10.”

Was the tyre allocation at fault for his falls? “For me, the problem is not the front tyre from Michelin, the problem is that it's 15th of November. So maybe we need to make this race in Sepang.

“So yes, sincerely, the front tyre of Michelin, you have a good difference between left and right, on the right it's very, very, very soft, but sometimes it's not enough. So it's not the allocation, it's more that it's winter time.”