Monster Yamaha riders Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi started the second of the MotoGP weekends in Misano in 13th and 17th respectively after deciding against new tires at the end of Free Practice 1.
After Vinales watched the pole position turn into misery last Sunday, Vinales, unsurprisingly, focused on preparing for the race this morning and kept the same soft front and rear wheels throughout the session.
“In FP1 we tried to work a lot to prepare for Sunday’s race,” said Vinales, who had also tried out the new Yamaha exhaust. “Our main job is to improve the race setting, so we mainly focused on that and not so much on our pace for one lap. I am pretty happy. Our rhythm was good.
“Now we will try to take another step for the race in FP2, especially because the conditions will get hotter then. We know we have the speed and can safely do a good lap, but our goal is to be quick in the race to be.”
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Vinales was the only rider to choose the hard rear tire last Sunday, which many – Rossi among them – felt was a factor in the Spaniard’s early lack of grip.
However, like many others, Rossi tried the hard tire this morning when he used the same set of medium front wheels and hard rear wheels throughout.
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Despite his low position, the Italian was just 1.111 seconds behind fastest rider Fabio Quartararo’s (Petronas Yamaha) time attack with new tires, but he thinks everyone has already increased the pace this weekend.
“We have to work because everyone is very strong. It looks like everyone is faster than last week, so we have to work on improving our pace. This morning we worked on the setting and tried different tires. We will see what happens this afternoon, “said Rossi.
In addition to the exhaust, the Yamaha riders should be able to try out a new carbon fiber swing arm this weekend after an initial assessment during the test on Tuesday.