SEPANG, Malaysia: Valentino Rossi topped the time sheet on the last day of MotoGP testing in Malaysia yesterday, despite he and Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo voicing frustrations with lack of traction in their rear tyres.
Nine-time world champion Rossi came in with 1 minute 59.999 seconds, the same time as rival Dani Pedrosa of Honda, whose teammate world champion Marc Marquez has missed this round’s testing due to a broken leg. Andrea Dovizioso of Ducati was third, just 0.068 seconds behind the top two.
Rossi, who finished fourth on Thursday, had earlier said he was struggling to get the maximum from his Yamaha with the new specification Bridgestone tyres at Malaysia’s Sepang circuit.
“The main thing at this test is to adapt the M1 (bike) to work well with the new Bridgestone tyres. We’ve worked a lot and tried many things but at the end of the day we are not very happy,” he said late Thursday.
“We’re suffering because with this tyre our bike becomes difficult to manage. We don’t have much that we can do.”
Spaniard Lorenzo came in seventh yesterday, 0.620 seconds behind Rossi and Pedrosa. He was ninth Thursday -- over a second down on that day’s leader Pedrosa.
Yamaha factory racing team manager Wilco Zeelenberg, however, said that the two-time world champion was “disappointed.”
But Zeelenberg refused to state if the tyres were a concern for Yamaha’s race competitiveness especially after Honda riders seemed to be able to throttle up with the same tyres.
