Valentino Rossi sets Qatar personal best, 'improves a lot'

After a tough opening test for his new Petronas Yamaha team, Valentino Rossi continued his upward trajectory with his best ever Qatar lap during the penultimate day of 2021 MotoGP pre-season testing.

The Italian finished the first test in just 20th (+1.768s) place, rose to 13th (+1.435s) during yesterday's start to the second test, then found a further 0.6s to set his first-ever 1m 53s lap of the Losail circuit, a track he has been visiting since 2004.

That was good enough for eighth on the timesheets, 0.749s from former Monster Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales.

But Rossi felt his improvement in terms of race pace was greater and that he is among of a group of riders currently with podium pace, with only Vinales and team-mate Fabio Quartararo a step ahead going into the final day.

"I had a good feeling today especially as we were able to work a lot on the bike," Rossi began. "We found some new solutions and I did a good time attack. I made my personal best of my career here in Qatar, because I've never made a '53 before.

"Everybody is very fast for sure, but we improved our position and especially I improved a lot my race pace. I did some good '54s and I am faster than yesterday. So it's a positive day."

Rossi, who featured in the top four during the day, credited his improvement to both new parts from Yamaha, most notably a revised chassis, plus set-up work with the Petronas team.

"Compared to the first test we improved the setting of the bike, we found some other solutions that gave me more feeling on the front so I can enter the corners faster. I also have also more grip in acceleration," he explained.

"And on the other side we tried some good parts from Yamaha, first of all the new chassis and with more kilometres I'm able to use more of its potential. This is very important because last year we suffered a lot about these things, because the bike was difficult to turn.

"Now it looks better, I feel better on the bike, I ride better. And for these two reasons we are able to improve the lap time and especially the race pace."

Rossi is also pleased with the aerodynamic work carried out by Yamaha, which has helped mitigate last year's top speed misery.

"It's very important because at the end the engine is frozen from last year and we are very very worried because last year the difference in the speed was a lot," Rossi said.

"But I push on Yamaha and I think that they work in the right way because it's not just the engine that makes the performance in the straight but also a lot of other things on a MotoGP bike. One is the aerodynamics.

"And they work well. We improved. Our speed is not so bad. We lose 10km/h from the Ducati but anyway the difference is less than last year. So it will be important on the fast tracks."

All of which means, as things currently stand, The Doctor sees himself as 'not far from the top' and with the pace to join the fight for a virtual third place.

"I checked a little bit the pace and it looks like Maverick is very strong, also Quartararo is faster than me. And after that you have a lot of riders - Franco is fast, also the Ducati factory and Suzuki - but in the race pace we are very similar. So it's not so bad. I'm not very far from the top.

"I'm happy because in these two days I was a lot more competitive compared to the end of last year."

Rossi's team-mate Franco Morbidelli completed an all-Yamaha top three.