Pole sitter Valentino Rossi described his first pole position of the season as ‘special’, but he is concerned with how the tyres will hold up over tomorrows Italian Grand Prix at Mugello.
The Doctor stormed to his first pole position of the season under glorious sunshine with an outright lap record of 1’46.208 using the medium tyre. Whilst happy with how his M1 is performing after the Barcelona test, the 39-year-old is concerned about what rubber will prove best tomorrow.
“It is a long time without a pole position because last year we never had one, but especially this year I struggled a lot in qualifying and have never been on the front row. To come back on to the front row with the pole position is something special and in Mugello it is also more,” said the Italian.
“We worked on the bike at the test in Barcelona and we were able to improve the balance a little bit. We don’t have a lot of new stuff we tried to find something in the past, something old, to try to understand.
“The reality is I feel good with the bike and also during the weekend we tried to improve the feeling with the front and the corner speed, the turning, which was good,” he said.
“With the race tyres it will be hard. For us and I hope for our opponents the other riders on the other bikes because both tyres are very much under stress and when you put in the harder tyre you can arrive at the end of the race but you will lose a lot of performance. The race will be long as always but it is a great moment and it is a great feeling after a long time.”
The top seven riders were covered by less than three tenths of a second and because of that, Rossi believes that any one of seven have the pace to win tomorrow.
“Looking at the pace unfortunately, it is more in the 47s than the 48s because a lot of riders are fast. I think that the first seven can win and fight for the victory,” he said.
“A lot of different riders and different bikes that have great pace. It will be very important for the work from today going into tomorrow to try to improve the tyres.
“The tyre choice will be crucial, front and rear, for everybody. After that we’ll see. The pole position is always a great place to start but the race is long so we’ll see.”