Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi treated the Circuito de Jerez with great care on Friday, as he found himself in wet to intermediate conditions during the first free practice sessions of the Gran Premio de España.
Current points leader Rossi kept his patience in the morning‘s miserable conditions. With FP1 being uncharacteristically wet for the Andalusian circuit, he used the session to adjust his bike's wet setting and assemble some valuable data to be used for future wet GPs.
He slowly upped his pace during the 45-minute outing and finished with a best lap of 1'53.263s, for 16th position, 1.615s from the front.
The Doctor then carried forward his gradual improvements in the afternoon.
He was keen to return to the track and get a feel for the drying Circuito de Jerez, whilst skilfully avoiding the wet patches. He continued to work hard on his setting and dropped under the 1'41-mark on his third and last stint.
His fastest time of 1‘40.698s left him just outside the top10, in 12th place in the combined times, 1.278s from the front.
“The conditions were quite wet,” he said. “This morning the track was full wet and the first impression is that with this bike we suffer a bit more. We have to work. In fact, we were not very fast this morning. In the afternoon it was dry, but not completely, so we had to stay cautious because there were some humid patches. In the afternoon we also had some problems. We are not fast enough, so we have to work.”
