Challenging Spanish GP through Grip Issues for Movistar Yamaha

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Valentino Rossi gave his all in an eventful race today, but a struggle with grip saw him finish in tenth place respectively at the Gran Premio de España Rossi had a solid start from seventh position, climbing up a place going into the first twisty section, but it wasn‘t to last. He crossed the line for the first time in seventh place as he got into an early battle with Zarco, and later with Lorenzo and Viñales. However, the nine-time World Champion soon saw an opportunity to move up the order and grabbed it with both hands.Within five laps the Doctor moved up from ninth to fifth, but had to make his YZR-M1 as wide as possible to hold off Dovizioso. With 17 laps to go, a small wobble cost Rossi fifth position. It was the first sign of grip troubles for the Italian, who was unable to keep a charging Danilo Petrucci, Aleix Espargaró and Jonas Folger at bay. He crossed the line in tenth place, 38.682s from the front. Today‘s results see Yamaha still holding the lead in the Constructor's Championship with a four-point margin. The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team also remains on top in the Team's Championship standings, 12 points ahead of its closest rival.Rossi is still first place in the rankings with 62 points The Yamaha Factory Racing Team will be back in action in two weeks' time for the Grand Prix de France at the Le Mans Bugatti Grand Prix race circuit. Valentino Rossi Position: 10th - Championship: 1st - Points: 62 "It was a very difficult race after a difficult weekend. I never had a good feeling with the bike and the tyres. We tried to work a lot, especially to fix the spin and acceleration, but unfortunately for the race we did worse. We tried to modify it a bit, but I was also in trouble with the front. At the end I had to slow down a lot and had a lot of vibration. It was OK to arrive right at the end, but it was a difficult weekend for the whole team. We expected to be stronger and more competitive at this track, looking at the results of last year. We need to try and understand what happened, tomorrow we have the test and we‘ll see." Massimo Meregalli Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director "Today‘s results make for a disappointing ending to the first European round of the season. After the warm up results, we couldn‘t have expected that the Spanish GP was going to turn out to be this type of race Valentino had exactly the same problem. It seems the hardest front tyre works better on our bike in cooler temperatures, because this was the only difference between the warm up and the race. We will analyse today‘s data and learn from it. Luckily, tomorrow we will spend one more day testing here, so we will try to understand what caused today‘s outcome."