Valentino Rossi, the recently-crowned 2008 MotoGP World Champion, got off to a strong start for the season’s second-last race in Sepang today, finishing second in the combined standings. The Italian was one of just three riders to dip under the 2’02 mark and the only one to do so in both sessions, having topped the time sheets in the morning.
After torrential downpours yesterday a few spots of rain at the start of second practice caused Rossi to delay his exit from the pits by a few minutes, but it did not worsen and the riders were able to use most of the session to continue with the dry set-up work they had begun in the morning. Rossi spent the day working on developing his base set-up to suit the demands of this track, which is the longest on the calendar, as well as working his way through his allocation of Bridgestone tyres.
Rossi’s Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo also put in fast times today, finishing second in the morning and fifth in the combined standings.
Valentino Rossi - Position: 2ndTime: 2’02.693Laps: 38
“This was a good day for us because we were fastest this morning and then second this afternoon behind Colin. I like this track a lot; it’s difficult, technical and wide and it’s possible to have a lot of fun riding a MotoGP bike here. It’s a different feeling compared to the tests here pre-season, because the bike has changed a lot since then and we’ve also learnt a lot more about the tyres; it’s good to see how much we have improved everything since then. Our pace today is already good so I think we have a good potential this weekend, but it’s definitely possible to improve some more and make our setting better. We need to work on one or two small things. I have a strong motivation for a good result here!”
Davide Brivio - Team Manager
“Overall it’s been a good opening day for us. We had a good session this morning, when everything worked well from the start, and then this afternoon we were able to continue more or less in the same way despite losing a bit of time because of the light rain at the start. We’ve been fast all day and we’ve collected a lot of information to add to the data we have from testing here pre-season. It seems our bike is already at a good level for this track so tomorrow we will look to refine our setting and finalise our tyre choice to make sure we’re in the best shape.”
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