Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi is still struggling with corner entry speed and says despite altering the bike's front/rear weight bias again at the Laguna Seca MotoGP round he still has a lack of feeling through the front Bridgestone.
The Doctor was pushed all the way by team-mate Nicky Hayden in yesterday's California encounter, enough that he lost the front twice through turn five but says he is looking to find enough pace to race with Ben Spies, Andrea Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli, and then worry about the front three.
“We worked well this weekend. We started from a better position than we have in recent races, and I got a good launch on the start and tried to stay with the leaders. I did a lap in the mid-’22s, but then I closed the front twice in a row on the bumps in Turn 5 and nearly crashed," said Rossi.
"I still had a tough race after that, because Nicky stayed glued to me and didn’t give me a chance to breathe. We obviously don’t want to be fighting for sixth place, but we’re having some problems at the moment and we have to try and do our best with what we have.
"We’re losing too much on corner entry, where I’m very slow because I don’t have enough feeling, but Ducati is working and we must stay focused and positive, making progress step by step. In the short term, we have to make up those missing tenths in order to stay with the group with Spies, Sic and Dovizioso. Then we’ll think about the others.”
