MotoGP 2008 - Round Nine - Assen (Netherlands)

MotoGP 2008 - Round Nine - Assen (Netherlands) - Day 1 - Yamaha Report

Rossi second but with work still to do in Assen

Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi returned to one of his favourite race tracks today, as the 60th Dutch TT got started in bright sunshine at Assen. Rossi won the race from 11th on the grid last year, arguably his best performance of 2007, and the Italian is keen to emulate his success with another win on Saturday. He started well today by finishing the first day of free practice in second place, although he was 0.732 seconds off Casey Stoner and will be looking to improve on this tomorrow.

This morning saw Rossi in sixth position but some set-up alterations for the afternoon session brought about a good improvement in his lap times and the Italian was one of only three riders to lap under the 1'37 mark, the others being Stoner and Tech 3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards. Rossi lapped consistently in the high 1'36s, already well under the circuit record, but he will be aiming to shave a few more tenths off tomorrow in order to narrow the gap to Stoner. Rossi's team-mate Jorge Lorenzo meanwhile finished the day 14th in the combined standings after a difficult day in which he struggled for front-end feeling.

Valentino Rossi - Position: 2nd Time: 1'36.819 Laps: 56 "Second place this afternoon is not bad at all, considering that this morning we had some problems. This afternoon we made some modifications and we started to improve quite a bit. We are still struggling in some points of the track however and this shows in the gap that we still have to Stoner. During this afternoon's session we understood some interesting things, which we hope will help us tomorrow. Today, however, it seems like I am the leader of the 'other' championship!"

Davide Brivio - Team Manager
"This afternoon we made a good improvement to our setting compared to this morning, and our pace got better accordingly. Compared to the majority of the field in fact our pace is very good, the problem is Casey! In order to fight with him it's clear that we're going to need to work even harder and improve even more, so this is what we will do. It seems that we now have a good base setting so now we will just try to make the next step. The weather today has been fantastic - a nice change from recent races - so we hope for more of the same tomorrow so we can keep on improving."

Lorenzo lacking confidence at Assen
Despite an impressive ride through the field to sixth from the back of the grid at Donington just four days ago, it seems that Jorge Lorenzo's recent trials are not completely behind him and the Fiat Yamaha Team rookie underwent a difficult opening day at the Dutch TT. The Spaniard is struggling with front-end feeling but worst of all is lacking confidence and trust in his bike, and could only manage 14th in the combined standings today.

Lorenzo started off the day 11th in morning practice and hoped to improve further this afternoon. However this was not to be as he was only able to better his morning time by 0.027 seconds and slipped back through the order. With this being one of his favourite tracks he is doubly frustrated and is now hoping that a good night's sleep can result in a clearer head and a more relaxed frame of mind tomorrow. His team-mate Valentino Rossi fared better today and finished second but a gap of 0.732 seconds to Casey Stoner, in first place, means that he too has work to do tomorrow.

Jorge Lorenzo - Position: 14th Time: 1'37.960 Laps: 54 "It was a bad session today and I was not expecting to be so slow here, at a track that I love. We need to do more laps in order to improve and try to find a way to change things; I am suffering a lot on the bike because I don't have enough confidence in the front. I am losing time in all areas, we know the bike can be faster but I can't find the way to ride it like this. I need to have more trust in the bike, but at the moment I think the problem is me and I am just not riding as I should be."

Daniele Romagnoli - Team Manager
"Today was quite a difficult session for us. We struggled all day to find a good feeling with the front and at the moment we have too much understeer. At the same time the bike is unstable under acceleration. This afternoon we stayed on just one set of Michelin tyres for the whole session in order to just concentrate on the bike setting without worrying about the tyres. We have tried some different solutions but they didn't work. It's clear that Jorge still needs more time and more laps in order to get his confidence back and for sure tomorrow the team will do all they can to help him to enjoy riding again."

Fast start for Edwards, Toseland looking to improve Just four days after the British GP, the Tech 3 Yamaha team was back on track in Holland today, with American Colin Edwards immediately on the pace at the historic Assen circuit. The American posted the fourth best time in this morning's opening free practice session and in dry but windy conditions this afternoon went one better to end the day third quickest. His improvement by nearly 0.5s came largely thanks to a small front-end set-up modification to help his Tech 3 Yamaha YZR-M1 turn quicker in the fast changes of direction at the Assen circuit.

On a day of impressively fast lap times, Edwards was one of only four riders to post times under the current lap record with his best time of 1.36.931 just 0.112s away from second placed Valentino Rossi. The lap record of 1.37.106 is held on a 990cc machine from 2006, underlining just how fast the pace was today.

British rider James Toseland had a difficult start to his ninth MotoGP race as he ended the day 13th fastest with a best lap of 1.37.838. Toseland is confident he can move up the timesheets tomorrow after a late switch to a geometry setting, similar to that used by Edwards, helped his progress.

Tomorrow's final practice and qualifying sessions are expected to be run in dry conditions, but rain has been forecast for Saturday's 26-lap race.

Colin Edwards 3rd 1.36.931 - 52 laps
"I'm pretty pleased with that because if you take Casey out of the equation I've got the pace to match anybody. We made a small change to the bike after this morning because here you carry so much load you have to play with the spring rate to get the right feeling. How my bike was set-up from Donington, it was just a bit too lazy and slow to react around this track. There are some pretty fast changes of direction round here. I was getting it to change direction but it was all happening a little bit too slow. My team had some good ideas to try and help the bike steer a bit better but it didn't feel great. There was a bit too much weight on the front. I was pushing but I didn't want to push any harder because the feel just wasn't there. We made another little change and I was straight into the low 37s and I was on it. We then changed the front setting again and I got a lot more confidence in the front and it felt awesome. I was never outside the top three so it is looking good. The grip feels really good and all my tyres seem pretty good so thanks to Michelin for that. You need endurance round this track and nothing too crazy grip wise in the beginning that might drop off. We've got a good direction but honestly if it is going to rain on Saturday I'd really like to get some rain tomorrow. I need to sort out this year's bike for the rain. We have a year old rain setting that works good but that setting needs to be tweaked for this year's bike. I could start the race with my old faithful rain setting and it will work, but we can make it better after what we had at Donington in the wet."

James Toseland 13th 1.37.838 - 45 laps
"It is hard work at the moment to be honest. We wasted a lot of time and should have gone with the setting we had at the end much earlier. Basically I've gone closer to what Colin is running but we didn't do it until too late and it was quite a frustrating session. I got up to speed quite fast right at the end when we tried this new setting so it seems like we have found a good direction but we wasted too much time getting there. The bike is better on the brakes because I was losing so much rear grip on the entry of the corners that I had no corner speed with the other setting. The way this new setting transfers the weight is much smoother and doesn't move weight off the rear as quick. With the new setting I got straight into the 37s and I feel I could have built on that but we'd been going round in circles for too long. I just spent too much time in the garage and when I need the track time to get the bike set-up on a track I've not tested on, I can't afford to do that. I'm trying to learn the track on this bike so I need to be out there. Now we've got this setting I'm confident for tomorrow that we can move forward."