Valentino Rossi Demonstrated His Motivation To Stay Ahead Of His Rivals
May 21, 2008
MotoGP
Current World Championship leader and five-time premier class title winner Valentino Rossi demonstrated his motivation to stay ahead of his rivals in his attempt to win back the title for the first time since 2005 by staying on after his French victory for two days of testing, while his fellow MotoGP competitors had left town.
Second quickest in the Monday test behind another man fighting for the title, Dani Pedrosa, Rossi was unable to match his time from yesterday in Tuesday´s work-out, but still topped a short timesheet ahead of current World Champion Casey Stoner, his compatriot and Stoner´s Ducati Marlboro colleague Marco Melandri and HRC test rider Erwan Nigon.
Only Rossi and Nigon emerged following lunch, after Ducati departed early, having discovered the malfunctioning component which interrupted Stoner´s race on Sunday, choosing to further investigate the problem at their Borgo Panigale factory in Italy rather than risk further damage to additional engines.
Rossi´s eighth lap of the afternoon yielded the day´s fastest time of 1´33.882, as he undertook a second day of Bridgestone tyre testing and also explored different chassis settings – completing 44 laps in total.
For French rider Nigon the last two days provided his first test with HRC and the 86 laps he undertook on Tuesday added to Monday´s training as good practice for the Indianapolis test he will participate in for the Japanese giant in July.
