Qatar GP – Rossi (5th): "We may have more problems on other circuits"
Two official drivers but two opposite trajectories for Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales, who did not experience the same 2019 Qatar Grand Prix: while the veteran Italian made a splendid rise from 14th to 5th place, his young teammate slipped from pole position in 7th row… Debriefing.
Valentino Rossi, Yamaha-Monster (14th in qualifying and 5th in race) : "We have been working hard since Saturday to change the settings of the bike. We have also made other changes for the race, we have worked well and I am happy to have had a good race".
- MNC special file :
"I felt good with the bike today and I enjoyed coming back from this far so it’s not so bad. I’m fifth, it’s good, especially because I only finish 0.6 seconds from victory. I tried to get on the podium, but I was not strong enough ".
"However, even if in the end we are happy with this place, we are still good here in Qatar. Which means that we still have to work hard, because we will maybe have more problems on other circuits"…
Site analysis: Contrasting weekend for Valentino Rossi, going from first place in free practice 1 to an anonymous 14th position in qualifying. The cause ? Bad settings causing excessive wear of the front tire, a phenomenon fortunately tuned for racing.
However, it remained to be able to climb back up to the leading group … Very incisive, the fastest forty-something in the world gave himself up to a spectacular display of his mastery to achieve this: Rossi is certainly no longer the fastest in testing, but he always responds to the race! Perhaps an effect of the new sponsor of the official Yamaha team with his "monstrous" hostesses ?!
He finally finished in 5th place and first Yamaha rider, but without ever having been able to worry Dovizioso, Marquez, Crutchlow and Rins. Hence a mixed record for the Doctor, on the one hand satisfied to finish only 0.600 sec from the winner and on the other disappointed not to have been able to do more..
It turns out IS a Sunday rider!
The Doctor made a spectacular comeback from 14th the grid to finish the day 5th, just 6 seconds adrift!
– MotoGP (@MotoGP)
Among the causes invoked to explain this situation, Rossi cites an evil that has become the nightmare of Yamaha engineers since 2017: a lack of traction at the origin of acceleration and a setback top speed against the Ducati and Honda. Even the Suzuki are, according to him, superior to the M1 in this area..
"The problems are more or less the same for me," he says bluntly. "In some areas we have improved, but unfortunately we still have difficulties with the grip at the rear. I hope I am wrong, but I expect difficulties on circuits less favorable for us".
Viñales must – really – improve on the starts
His box neighbor draws the same observation of inferiority against the competition, after going from the euphoria of pole position to a laborious race finished in 7th place, almost 2.5 seconds behind the winner….
"Obviously we have to improve the bike", moans – already – Maverick Viñales, who nevertheless takes his share of responsibility for his lack of achievement in Qatar. "We have to improve it, but I too have to do better".
"I did a big wheelie at the start and I missed the point a bit", admits the n ° 25 who did not know how to take advantage of his pole signed despite a huge top speed deficit: Viñales was the slowest of the 12 drivers in QP2, with 328.2 km / h against 343.6 km / h for the Honda of Crutchlow (-15.4 km / h) !
His secret? the new number 12 manages to compensate in the curves for this deficit in a straight line, at least when the track is clear: "when I am alone I can do very good lap times […], but as soon as I am behind another driver I suffer from this lack of grip at the rear. I could not attack or overtake ".
Problem: the race always takes place with about twenty competitors by its side! Charge to the Spanish to improve its catastrophic management of departures to have as little as possible to overtake…
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