MotoGP Austin test - Extra acceleration required for Rossi

Factory Yamaha's Valentino Rossi, and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo will not take part in the third session of MotoGP testing at Austin tomorrow after collecting all the necessary data in two days.

Factory Yamaha's Valentino Rossi, and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo will not take part in the third session of MotoGP testing at Austin tomorrow after collecting all the necessary data in two days.

By the middle of the afternoon today, Rossi had decreased his laptime to a 2'05.518 after 29 laps but was still a full second behind Lorenzo and the Italian says he has identified where he must improve, specifically on the exit of slow corners.

“The feeling with the track improved today, we started to work on the bike to improve the difficult points, especially in the three very hard braking areas where it is important to have good stability. It’s also very important to have grip on the edge through the hairpin to have speed along the straight," said The Doctor.

"It looks like you can make a big difference in the slow parts here. The chicane part in turn two is very technical and difficult as it is blind; you have to go a bit with memory.

"Step by step we improved a lot from yesterday but have some disadvantage compared to the other guys so we need to put all the sections together.

"The target was to come here and try to understand the track and try to be ready for the race.

"Our competitors are able to accelerate faster than us from the hairpin and they have a bit more grip on the edge compared to us so these are the areas where we have to work, in the flowing parts we are not so bad.

"The track is good, a very classical ‘Tilke’ track, I like the fast parts, turn two and turn ten especially. There is lots of hard braking and it is very wide so good for overtaking. The long right before the last two lefts is also good. It's fun and not too hot like it is in Sepang so it's a good place to make a motorcycle race.”

By MotoGP desk

Image by Keith Rizzo/COTA