Rossi: The problem is always the same

Valentino Rossi has called upon his team to figure out a new working method that will alleviate the rear grip issues that have persisted throughout the second half of 2019 after another dispiriting showing at Valencia.

The Italian was never in the mix for a competitive finish in the 2019 finale as he struggled to a distant eighth, 22 seconds back of race winner Marc Marquez. “The problem is always the same," Rossi complained.

His frustrations at an incorrect qualifying strategy on Saturday were compounded a day later, with Rossi calling on his squad – and new crew chief David Muñoz – to “understand the way to work” at the upcoming tests at Valencia and Jerez.

“It’s a difficult race because unfortunately I was in this situation not for the first time this year and more or less the problem is always the same, I don’t have enough rear grip so I’m not particularly fast,” a frustrated Rossi said.

“But also after 10 laps or sometimes less, after the first part of the race I lose a lot of grip from the rear tyre, looks like my rear tyre suffers very much.

“In the second half of the championship from Austria unfortunately we have this problem different times but at the end we don’t fix and also today was the same. During the season anyway I did also some good races but unfortunately a lot of the time I was not fast enough and I was in trouble, so we have to try better for next year.

“We have some different things because we changed the chief mechanic so these two tests will also be important to understand the way to work in the team. And after we expect something new from Yamaha, especially about engine but also all the rest, chassis and electronics.

“So from Tuesday we restart and our target for next year is to be stronger and more competitive.”

On the conditions today, Rossi continued: “Today the conditions were very much at the limit to make a motorcycle race. Because also today is worse than yesterday.

“The other question mark for us is that yesterday I did in FP4 20 laps in a row with the same bike and the same tyres but I was a lot faster and I feel not the pace to win the race but comfortable in 1m 31s.

“Today I was a lot more in trouble but the conditions and temperature are less, so this is quite normal. What we don’t understand is that also this morning I used the same rear tyre and this morning we had 5 degrees less than this afternoon because it was colder but this morning I was faster, I had a good pace.

“It looks like also the other Yamahas, except Quartararo, mainly Maverick, suffered more than in practice, because in practice he was fast. But this is the situation.

“Racing with this temperature is very dangerous and we see also in the other classes, mainly in Moto3 big crash, so for me it’s a big risk to come to Valencia on 17th of November, because the last two or three years it’s winter. And with our bikes and out tyres, these conditions are dangerous.”

Can his issues simply be resolved by more top speed, one of the ’19 M1’s principle weaknesses? “I think that the top speed is one of the main things because if you want to try to win you cannot suffer like this on the straight with the other bikes.

“Yamaha know a lot and work on the engine, but apart from this we have personally more problem with the rear grip that is not correlated with the top speed. For sure when you have top speed is better but we have also some other problem that we need to try to fix next year.”