Ducati's Valentino Rossi has hinted he may have to change his riding style to cope with the raw power of this year's Desmosedici MotoGP bike and said he has a strange feeling to ride from the rear of the bike instead of the front as he is used to.
The Doctor ended today's final free practice session 1.2s off the pace in eighth but is aiming to leapfrog team-mate Nicky Hayden and one other rider to start Sunday's race from the second row. Rossi has also said he is happy with his pace on the harder compound Bridgestone tyres.
"Today it is coming better practice by practice, the position is nothing fantastic but we are not so far from the second group and also with the harder tyre I am quite consistent riding the bike. We need to improve two or three tenths which we hope to do tomorrow and we will try to start in the second row," said Rossi, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.
"One point of view is we have to try and improve the setting but we also have to try and improve the bike for the future, but this is another story. For tomorrow, I think something more different in the setting but nothing very big. What is good is the front of the bike give more feedback, it become more like a normal bike and I understand in a better way what is happening on the front so I can push more but remain the understeer.
"With this bike you always have the feeling to ride with the rear tyre and is a strange feeling, so we have to understand a bit. The second target is to try and have a better reliability of the engine, softer, smoother because now we have a lion in the fairing and this leads us to problems with putting the horsepower on the ground.
"Now at the end of the straight, we are very fast. Ducati are first to fourth, Stoner is close but we are faster so now we can take some power out of the top and put it in the bottom. For me, it is difficult as I always ride with the front and maybe this reason is why it works better for some riders than others."
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