Rossi "Not Good Enough" In Brno
- Aug 17, 2015
- 2 min read
Indianapolis was a damage limitation exercise for Valentino Rossi after a bad qualifying saw him forced to fight his way through the pack from 8th on the grid. Brno was a different story however. He'd managed an excellent front row start in 3rd and was expecting to have a close fight with Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez.
But a bad start saw him drop behind the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso and Tech 3 Yamaha of Bradley Smith, all the while Lorenzo and Marquez were streaking clear at the front. By the time the Italian had cleared his compatriot at the end of the second lap it was too late. The gap had stretched over two-seconds between himself and 2nd place, and running on the hard front/hard rear tyres did nothing to aid him as the race progressed.
Though still to finish a race in 2015 off of the rostrum, Rossi stated prior to the weekend that he needed more than just podium finishes and he was not able to do this in the Czech Republic. This result sees him level on points now with Lorenzo and the championship fight, as the Spaniard put it, “starts from zero”.
“This weekend Jorge always rode very fast, but at the same time I had hoped to be closer and that I was able to stay with Marc, because during the practices my pace was not so bad. Unfortunately I wasn't fast and strong enough and also my rhythm was quite slow. It's true that I had a bad start and lost time, but that was not the problem; I simply didn't have a good enough rhythm and that's a shame.
"I expected a better race, so we have to understand why and try to be stronger at the next races. It's unbelievable that after eleven races Jorge and I are on the same level of points. It's difficult, because it looks like Jorge came back very strong after the break and he is in great shape, but we will have to keep trying.”
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