Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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MOTOGP FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 12 / SEPTEMBER 7-9, 2018 MISANO WORLD CIRCUIT MARCO SIMONCELLI / RIMINI, SAN MARINO P48 iii My Own Race: 46 VALENTINO ROSSI 7TH MOTOGP "It was a pity because I would have liked to have a good race here in Misano, in my home GP, in front of all my friends and fans," said a disappointed Valentino Rossi. "I expected to be faster in the race, because yesterday in FP4 we did a good session. But this morning we had more problems with the bike, and even this afternoon, despite the conditions being more or less the same as those of yesterday. The big problem is that at the moment we don't understand why. We must be able to understand what happens to our bike in situations like this. I hope we can fix it very quickly, because I want to go back to doing good races." 25 MAVERICK VINALES 5TH MOTOGP "It was really difficult," said Maverick Vinales. "After the start I was really happy, actually, in the second corner because I thought 'Now I take the slipstream from the fast guys and I will keep it up until the end,' because I felt really strong in FP4 and I felt I could do it. But we had quite a big drop in feel- ing from the Saturday to the Sunday, so we have to check what happened on the bike better, but it's still difficult. It's been a year and a half that we have been suffering in the races and we still have to understand what the point is where we lose out. Aragon will also be difficult because it's hot and slippery, but we have some ideas for improvement that we can try. One of them is braking areas, as today I suffered a lot with the front tire, so let's see." 6 STEFAN BRADL DNF MOTOGP "Today we chose to race on a hard rear tire so I managed the first laps in a bit of a de- fensive way until I got comfortable with it," Stefan Bradl said. "Our strategy was to gain some advantage in the final part of the race. Unfortunately, after some laps I started to feel vibrations from the front and finally I crashed. We don't know yet what happened. We'll discuss with Michelin to analyze the data and see what the problem was." 99 JORGE LORENZO 17TH MOTOGP "It wasn't the race we were expecting, even though we were competitive, and I think that we could have fought for the win," Jorge Lorenzo said. "Today it was much warmer than the last few days and the grip wasn't ideal, so we had to chose harder tires than what I usually like. I suffered a lot under brak- ing because I was unable to stop the bike, the front was turning in on me and the situation was very difficult to manage. This was the main reason why I crashed: I had to push more than usual because I had lost too much time battling with Mar- quez and Andrea had taken advantage to break away. Now we have to analyze the data well to understand how to improve the bike and be even quicker in the next races." 23 MARCEL SCHROTTER 3RD MOTO2 "Finally! It's still a little bit hard to understand, it's been so long," said Schrötter. "I mean I don't know what I did the last couple of years but my career was a little bit up and down since I've come into the World Championship. I always knew I could go fast, but I didn't feel confident and have the package around me. This is something I already felt last year when I came into the team. Step by step we came closer and today is finally the day I make the podium."