Ducati's Valentino Rossi was unable to make any headway with the soft rear Bridgestone in MotoGP qualifying at Mugello today after the chatter he experienced with the front yesterday transferred to rear but he says he should have the pace to run with Nicky Hayden and Cal Crutchlow.
Team-mate Hayden and Pramac Ducati man Hector Barbera made the best of the softer tyre, posting fourth and third-place times respectively, but The Doctor could only manage tenth and will have some serious places to make up from the fourth row.
"The problem is when we put the soft, I cannot improve my performance so I have to start from behind and also from the fourth row, that is a pity. We don't understand what is happen with the soft because the other guys, the other Ducatis, are able to improve a lot but for me was impossible as I had a lot of chatter and I wasn't able to go faster," said Rossi, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.
"Sometimes it happen for us and we still don't understand why. But anyway for tomorrow, the race will be very hot, very long and our pace is not a disaster. I have to try to start in a good way and stay constant with my pace to recover some position. I will use the normal tyre tomorrow as the extra-hard slide and spin too much after some laps.
"In the race we are not far from Nicky and Barbera, and Bradl and Crutchlow is not far but especially Crutchlow is a bit faster."