Valentino Rossi and his vastly experienced squad was powerless to overcome near terminal grip issues as he slumped to his worst finish in a dry MotoGP race at Jerez since his return to Yamaha in 2013.
A 'difficult race' came at the end of a 'very, very difficult weekend' for the championship leader, who claimed to have suffered from a total lack of grip from the very beginning of the 27-lap encounter.
In the closing laps, Rossi uncharacteristically fell down the order to tenth while posting laps close to four seconds slower than eventual race winner Dani Pedrosa, suffering from a serious vibration. “I was lucky to arrive [at the finish],” he said.
“A very, very difficult weekend and sincerely it was a very difficult race,” began Rossi, who last finished this low in a dry outing at Assen, 2012. “We didn't expect. We expected to be stronger, to be more competitive, especially when looking at the result of the past few years here in Jerez.
“We struggled always very much with the spinning in acceleration. It was the main problem for all of the weekend. For the race, we try to modify the balance first of all because we were worried for the life of the medium rear.
“Anyway, the hard was impossible to use. We tried to spin less. In the end it was worse. I lost feeling in the front. The race was also very difficult for braking, for entering [the corners] in all places where during practice I was better.
“At the end we didn't fix the spin and maybe we made it worse. In the end, during the last six or seven laps, especially on the left, I start to have a very high vibration and I start to slow down three seconds per lap. At the end I was lucky to arrive [at the finish].
“It was a difficult weekend. We have to try to understand. We have to make it better. Tomorrow we will have the test. Maybe there will be something interesting to try to understand so we can be stronger and more competitive for Le Mans.
“Sincerely speaking, I cannot speak about problems of degradation because I never had grip. I have a lot of spin also in the qualifying and I degradation arrive after ten laps. I never have a good feeling with the bike all weekend.
“We tried some things but we were always struggling. Why? I don't know. Now, we'll check the data. This track is usually one where you spin a lot, especially in the last years. But this time we suffer more.”
Considering these serious grip issues, Rossi took a fairly sizeable set-up gamble straight after finishing morning warm-up a lowly ninth. It was, he explained, either take a risk, or accept his poor morning speed.
“Now it's easy to say we did a mistake. We risk but as always we had to try because in the warm-up I was ninth. I thought with that setting we could have tried to do a bit better.
“But we thought we could make a good race, not just better. This didn't work. It looks like during this weekend our bike was always fighting with the tyres. We never found the good grip. We always have a lot of spin. This made everything more difficult.”
The Jerez disaster aside, Rossi retains the championship lead by virtue of his three podiums in Qatar, Argentina and Austin, and believes the title pendulum may swing back and forth between Yamaha and Honda, as it has done between the months of March and May.
“It's very interesting if you look at the results because we are four riders [separated by] ten points. You have to look not just at today, but in general from the first race. In the first two races our bike worked very well and Viñales rode very well and we put two bikes on the podium.
“In the next two Honda make the same. I think this year will be like this. Every race track is another story. It's like a mini-championship but we hope that in Le Mans we can go faster.” - Crash
