Rossi: Work and hope, Suzuki impressive

Valentino Rossi left Austria having finished as the top Yamaha rider in both Red Bull Ring rounds of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship.

But fifth and ninth places in a pair of restarted races were of little cause for celebration.

Starting just 14th on the grid for Sunday's Styrian race, Rossi made the most of the M1's holeshot device and was ninth on the opening lap.

However, he had faded to 11th when the race was halted due to a dramatic brake failure for team-mate Maverick Vinales.

Rossi, who had switched to the newer-spec Brembo system this weekend, said his brakes were 'not fantastic' in the first race but 'good' during race two.

Again ninth on lap one of the 12-lap restart, Rossi would finish in that same position, 4.5s from race winner Miguel Oliveira.

"We knew that in this track we have to suffer, because here the top speed is very important and this year the difference in top speed is huge, very difficult to manage," said Rossi, whose weekend best speed of 310.3km/h compared with a 320.4km/h for Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso.

"Already last year it was like this, and we pushed a lot to improve the situation, but this year the situation is very similar. So here you have a lot of long straights, and we suffer.

"Last week I was able to do P5, but also because there were a lot of crashes in front.

"Today, this weekend, everybody fixed their problems and they are able to put the extra power that they have compared to us on the ground, nobody made any mistakes, and the first Yamaha arrived P9.

"The problems are more or less similar to the last years but it's also true that in other tracks we are good, because in Jerez, we were able to arrive first, second, and third.

"Now we have to work and hope that in other tracks, like Misano, we can be more competitive, because it's very difficult.

"Last year we were strong at Misano and we hope we can fight for top positions again this year."

Yamaha's Red Bull Ring struggles were in contrast to the form shown by the other inline-four cylinder machine, Suzuki's GSX-RR, which was leading in the hands of Joan Mir when the race was stopped.

Mir, runner-up last weekend, went on to take fourth place despite having to use an old front tyre for the restart. Team-mate Alex Rins finished sixth.

"Suzuki in these two weekends were impressive," Rossi said. "They have worked very much, very hard, and in a good way. So the problem with the top speed is not because of the inline-four [engine configuration].

"Suzuki has more grip than us in acceleration, but also the engine is clearly faster.

"Today I was behind Rins, and from one corner to the other, he accelerated a lot faster than me. So it means that Suzuki is working in the right way. We hope that we can improve."

Rossi is now seventh in the world championship, 25 points from Petronas Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo.