Ducati's Valentino Rossi will have to wait until the Silverstone MotoGP round before he is allowed to use an upgraded engine in competition despite the fact he will test it at Estoril tomorrow.
The Doctor will try the new motor, which has a smoother power delivery, at the Portugese track where he finished seventh in today's race, netting his best result of the season so far and finishing in front of team-mate Nicky Hayden. But because of engine allocation rules, he can't race it until the middle of next month.
"We will start to work from tomorrow, we have some new parts and we will try a different engine that maybe is a little bit smoother in acceleration. I don't think is the answer, we don't fix all the problems but we are able to do one small step and we know that we go on the right way. I think the test for tomorrow won't be crucial but quite important," said Rossi, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.
"Yesterday, we spoke deeply with Filippo, did some small modify that for us is important if we understand we go the right way but I've to use the current engine until Barcelona. The next engines are for Silverstone because we have to wait for the rule. Also, if we understand this is the way, then for Silverstone it is possible to make more modify to the engine.
"For sure today was a better race compared to the previous and we were able to confirm the better work we did during practice. I can prepare the race in a normal way and so today I was fast from the beginning and I can do some overtaking, take some position and also I can stay constantly at the laptime we expect, so this is now our potential.
"For me it depends track-by-track if we can go a bit faster, a bit better but for now we have to fix some problem for try to make better position. The problem are quite clear. Yesterday I spoke with Filippo (Preziosi, Ducati Corse boss) and today I lose a lot in the centre of the track because it is very difficult for us to put the horsepower down like the other guys so for this reason we will try something different."
