Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi is continuing to work on the weight distribution on his Demsosedici GP11.1 at the Motegi MotoGP round and says that, after loading the front tyre even more, it now feels much better than it did at Aragon.
The Doctor is continuing to run the aluminium front spars in an attempt to get more feel from the front without sacrificing rear grip as he did in Spain with fairly disastrous consequences. Team-mate Nicky Hayden is in sixth, six-tenths faster and will be having his data and setup 'borrowed' right about now.
“We made progress with the bike throughout the day, and as a result we improved our lap times, dropping below 1:48. The pace is still far from the top, but not bad for now. There are a number of things to resolve, but we’re definitely not in the situation we were at Aragon, where we always had big problems with rear grip," said Rossi.
"That’s not the case here. We worked on weight distribution, loading the front a little more, and it’s better. Tomorrow we must try to drop into the low 1:47 range. That’s our goal. Nicky is already there, although he chose to ride mainly with the soft tyre. The track is good. The asphalt has good grip, and they did a good job.”
