Vinales 'on point', Rossi 'needs to improve'

Monster Yamaha MotoGP riders Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi finished FP1 for the Spanish Grand Prix season-opener in second and 13th places respectively.

The end of the session saw Vinales, quickest in Wednesday's test, close to within just 0.024s of Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez, then shake his head with disappointment after failing to improve on his final lap.

But the #12, who spent much of the 45-minutes working on set-up before the late time attack, is feeling extremely confident for the remainder of the weekend.

"FP1 has been very productive, we‘ve tried many things," Vinales said. "We also worked on my rhythm which we improved quite a lot.

"I‘m so excited for Qualifying and to start the race, because I feel my level is on point.

"This afternoon we will be working really hard on preparing for the race. It will be very important for us to try to gain grip, like always, especially with these hot temperatures out on track."

Rossi tried various set-up options throughout the session as he attempted to improve the balance of his bike. The Italian also waited until the final stages of FP1 to put in his personal best lap, which was 0.768s from Marquez on the ultra-close timesheets.

"Today, in the morning, the track had a better condition," Rossi explained. "The circuit was faster because the temperature wasn‘t as high as it was during the test on Wednesday.

"We tried to do a lot of work, but our pace is not that fast, so we need to improve the feeling with the bike and the tyres. We will see this afternoon."

Rossi was one place behind Petronas Yamaha's Franco Morbidelli, with Fabio Quartararo in 17th place after being forced to sit out the opening 20-minutes, a punishment for breaking the MotoGP rules regarding training on modified production bikes.

While this afternoon's session will be important to work on race pace, the hotter conditions might well mean that Saturday morning's FP3 decides the top ten places for direct access to Qualifying 2.