Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi remains undecided on tyre choice for Sunday’s Qatar MotoGP as he believes he has similar pace on both and it could all come down to track temperature in the desert.
The Doctor finished ninth on the combined timesheets and only squeaked into qualifying two by right but he and his crew seemed happy with the performance, laughing and joking at session end. However, he is under no illusion that pole is a stretch.
“I am satisfied about today because the minimum target that I set for myself was to be inside the top ten. The last practice session was unbelievable because there are ten bikes within three-tenths of a second. I’m not happy about my position, but I’m not far from pole position,” said Rossi.
“To get the pole tomorrow will be very hard, but I want to start a little more in front of the field. We improved the bike and the setting a lot today and my pace is not so bad, it’s very similar to that of the other top guys.
“We have to keep working on the tyres, especially the rear. I might be able to use the softer option, but maybe I can also use the hard tyre, so tomorrow will be a very important day to understand which tyre I should use for the race. Right now it’s 50/50.”
