Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi is mystified by the lack of front-end feel he had during today's MotoGP qualifying session at Estoril which saw him set the ninth-fastest time, one place behind rookie Cal Crutchlow.
After being within half a second of the fastest time in both dry free practice sessions, The Doctor plummeted to the middle of row three and is more than a second slower than Jorge Lorenzo.
“I’m a little disappointed with my performance today because I expected to get the fifth- or sixth-best time and be on the second row; that was the target. Unfortunately, though, it was a little more difficult than expected, and I wasn’t able to ride like I could yesterday since I didn’t have as much feeling," said Rossi.
"I couldn’t fight for a position that we would have been happier with. I struggled a little with the track conditions, as I didn’t have enough grip, especially on the front, and we’re trying to understand why. For tomorrow, we have to try to improve something with the front setup in order to still have a good race.
"I think the best pace will be around 1'37.5, and I’d be very happy to get in the high 1'37s, but we’ll have to find something in order to do that. I’m not hoping for a wet race, because although it’s true that we might be able to have more fun, racing in the dry makes it possible to understand more. Really, both options are fine.”
