Valentino Rossi was not happy with his results from the first day of practice at the French GP. Rossi finished more than a second behind pace setter Casey Stoner, claiming ninth place for the day.
“For sure I hoped today would go better than that,” Rossi said. “We had a few problems trying to find the right setting, so we’re too far back today. We’re struggling somewhat on corner exits. The bike moves a lot under acceleration and we’re trying to understand if it’s a question of setup, or one of electronics, because at the moment, I’m having a hard time riding. In the end, we found an interesting change for the rear, but there were just a few minutes left in the session. I only had time for a couple of laps, during which I more or less matched my best time. Maybe with a little more time, I could have dropped another tenth and made up some positions, but tomorrow we definitely have to do much better when we try that setup with more time.”
Nicky Hayden, on the other hand, had a very satisfying day in Le Mans. The Ducati rider started the fourth round of the 2011 MotoGP season with the fourth fastest time during free practice. Hayden was able to improve four positions from the morning session, and pulled within .87 seconds of the leader.
“Today was certainly better than the last few Fridays, by quite a long way,” Hayden said. “It’s still early and it’s just one day, but the bike felt quite good here straight away. The Portugal test was very useful for me and the team. We thought we made a little step there and it seems like we confirmed that today. Overall, the bike definitely seems a little bit better, but we’ve still got a long way to go, to be that fast consistently. Also, the gap to the very front is still quite a big difference. Le Mans is difficult because it’s not a real grippy track, but we know our bike is really good on hard braking and as I expected, that’s helping us here. Anyway, hopefully this will give us a little bit of momentum, and we’ll keep rolling tomorrow.”
