VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P61
Briefly...
It was more precise, but difficult to
make race pace. With this one I can
make more mistakes, and correct
those mistakes." Teammate Dani Pe-
drosa is not quite in the same boat:
he uses a different chassis from Mar-
quez, and will stick with the 2015 ver-
sion, he said.
Chassis changes at Yamaha too—
but this a step forward, and hailed as
such by Valentino Rossi, who tested
old and new chassis together on the
first day, before switching all his at-
tention to the new version, tested
(briefly) at Barcelona, and then more
fully at private tests at the Aragon
Motorland. "We hoped to test at two
tracks, but the Barcelona test was
washed out," he said. On the first
day of practice he tried old and new
back-to-back, but would switch to
the new for the rest of the weekend.
"Already it has improved lap time and
pace," Rossi said. "It is more easy
to ride, feels lighter, and it looks
like the tires have more grip. But it
is maybe a little more unstable under
braking." Visible changes are in the
structure around the steering head,
where revised stiffness ratios seem
to have made for a more friendly
feel, with a confident Rossi claiming
pole, breaking the spell of third-row
starts that have blighted his potential
against metronomic teammate Jorge
Lorenzo in recent races. Lorenzo
echoed Rossi's approval, but took
his turn at a third-row qualifying posi-
tion.
Valentino Rossi's first pole since
the end of 2014 was greeted with
roars of approval by the crowd, as
he swooped past slow traffic in the
dying minutes to put himself top of
a sustained head-to-head battle
with Marquez, there can be no
foregone conclusions.
Rossi set his own best lap on
the penultimate, so that he start-
ed the last with an advantage
of almost half a second… not
a lot, but more than for the last
few. It looked as though it was
enough, until Marquez flared up
in the last fast run home, closing
right up through the final fast left
Ramshoek to attack under brak-
ing for the final chicane, both
wheels sliding as he cut inside
the Yamaha.
And they're off! There has been
no shortage of drama and great
racing this season in MotoGP.
continued on next page
