Sunday, 29 March 2009

Although he could not prevent Casey Stoner taking the glory in the BMW M Award showdown, Valentino Rossi was content with his work at the Official MotoGP Test.

The World Champion Valentino Rossi came second in Sunday’s Jerez showdown with his predecessor as MotoGP title winner Casey Stoner, but the Fiat Yamaha man made progress in southern Spain and has had a good preseason as he prepares to defend his premier class crown.

The legendary Italian rider put in a best lap of 1’39.365s in the BMW M Award shootout, leaving him trailing Stoner by a 0.719 gap, but he was in or around the top three on the timesheets consistently over the course of the weekend, just as he was in tests at Sepang and Losail International earlier this year.

“Firstly the conditions were quite bad in the 45 minute session, but anyway I am quite happy, especially about the work we did yesterday and this morning,” Rossi stated. “We tested a lot of new and different things which worked well and we have found a setting which will be good for the race here at Jerez. I am quite fast with the hard tyres, I feel strong and our speed is ok.”

Having been tangled up with San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Toni Elias at one stage and interrupted by the temporary halt in proceedings when Tech 3’s James Toseland crashed heavily, Rossi felt he could have gone quicker on Sunday.

However he nonetheless acknowledged Stoner’s rapid pace when he added, “Over one lap Stoner is faster than me, he did a good time today so congratulations to him. I was a little bit unlucky with the red flag and with Toni Elias. My potential is a little bit faster than I went, but I don’t think it was possible to have gone as fast as Casey.”