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Just five
days after his thrilling home victory at Mugello,
Valentino Rossi was back on board at the Montmelo
circuit in Catalunya today, running a one-off livery on
his M1 in celebration of the Italian national football
team, the ‘Azzurri’, and their impending European
Championship campaign. Rossi’s bike was complemented by
his leathers, which have been designed to make him look
like an ‘Azzurro’ himself, complete with football
shorts, shirt and socks.
After heavy rain overnight the track was still wet in
places this morning, especially on the long start/finish
straight, which is overshadowed by the huge Montmelo
grandstand. The rain meant that the notoriously slippery
track had even less grip than usual and Rossi spent the
day testing Bridgestone tyres and refining the setting
of his M1 to suit the demands of the circuit, with
improving traction a priority. He was consistently fast
throughout the day, finishing second in first practice
and third this afternoon, when the drier surface meant
that times were well over half a second quicker than
this morning.
Rossi’s team-mate Jorge Lorenzo had an unfortunate
opening day at his home race, crashing out of this
afternoon’s practice. The Spaniard was taken to hospital
in Barcelona where the decision was made to withdraw
from his home GP.
Valentino Rossi 3rd 1'43.090;
“We’ve got a hard job here because this is one of the most
difficult tracks for the surface; you slide so much! It’s
very important to try to find the best traction for the long
acceleration areas, and so we’ve tried a lot of different
tyres today in order to try to understand what’s going to
help us the most. The grip is worse than normal here today
because of the rain overnight and so this is making it even
harder, plus with Bridgestone I need quite a different
riding style to last year so we have to think about this
too. The setting of Mugello is more or less okay as a base
but the important thing is the traction and at the moment we
still need to improve this. As for the livery…it’s the idea
of Fiat and so we decided to make the leathers to go with
the bike to make me look like a football player! I think
it’s quite funny and it’s just to say ‘in bocca al lupo’ to
the Italian team for the European Championships.”
Davide Brivio Team Manager; “It looks like we’re
already quite close, although we definitely have some things
we need to work on. We’ve focused a lot on testing tyres
today because this is a very particular track and we have a
lot of things to check before we can make our final decision
and it will also depend a lot on how hot it gets this
weekend. At the moment we’re just concentrating on
collecting as much information as we can and adjusting our
setting accordingly. Anyway, we’re quite happy with this
first day’s work. Our livery is something fun and it’s
definitely quite funny to see Valentino dressed like a
football player! We want to wish ‘good luck’ to the Italian
team for the tournament and now we hope they’ll be doing the
same for us on Sunday!”
Jorge Lorenzo will miss his home Grand Prix at Barcelona
this weekend after a crash in this afternoon’s free
practice. The Spaniard lost the front of his M1 at turn 11
just four laps into the afternoon session and slid into the
gravel, before being stretchered off and taken to the
circuit clinic. After undergoing an initial check-up at the
track, which confirmed that there were no further injuries
to the ankles which he fractured in China, the decision was
made to take him to hospital in Barcelona for further
examination.
Doctor Xavier Mir of the University Institut Dexeus in
Barcelona commented as follows: “I can confirm that Lorenzo
will not be able to compete this weekend after the tests
done here at the Institut Dexeus have confirmed the
following injuries: “1. He suffered head trauma and lost
consciousness. We made a neurological examination with a CAT
scan and an MRI scan and from this we can confirm that there
is no cranial haemotoma or haemorrage. However, he now needs
to stay under observation for between 48 and 72 hours to see
how this develops; 2. He sustained an injury to the 4th and
5th finger on the right hand, where he has lost some skin.
He also has an abrasion of the extensor tendon. We need to
see how this develops but it could be possible that he needs
a small skin graft; 3. Various other bruises and grazes.”
Daniele Romagnoli Team Manager; “Unfortunately today
Jorge suffered another crash and it’s clear that the luck is
not with him at the moment. This morning we had a good
session and things were going very well, we’d found a good
base set up from which to work and we were quite happy with
our progress. Then this afternoon started well but sadly
after four laps we had another crash when Jorge lost the
front at turn 11. He was going 130 km so it was quite a fast
crash, but we checked the data and we can’t see that he made
any particular mistake. We were trying some different tyres
and bike setting from the morning and we were feeling quite
happy about how things were going so it’s a great pity.
Luckily he’s avoided any further injury to his ankles, but
the head injury means that he must undergo a period of rest
and not take any further risks. We are very disappointed for
Jorge, but the important thing now is that he has some rest
and takes time to recover properly.”
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