Last-minute adjustments to the front of Valentino Rossi's Fiat Yamaha gave him the confidence he needed to take the Brno MotoGP race to Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner this afternoon.
The Doctor, who was stuck behind Kawasaki's John Hopkins for the first few corners, made some changes to the front end of his YZR-M1 after warm-up this morning – but isn't saying what they are.
“I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice, and with Jeremy we made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well<" said Rossi.
"I lost about half a second getting past Hopkins at the start and Casey was incredibly fast at that stage, like he’d already done ten laps! For a short time I was worried but then, after two laps, I understood that my bike was working very well and that I was fast enough to try to catch him.
"I had closed a little bit already and gradually the red bike was becoming a bit bigger in front of me, and I think this is when he started to push harder and made his mistake. I was anticipating a very hard battle if I did catch him, so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it – this made things a lot easier for me!"
