Ducati Team newcomer Valentino Rossi had his best performance yet on the Desmosedici GP11 with a fine fifth in the opening practice session of the weekend on Thursday at Qatar.
The Italian nine-time world champion continues to make progress with the Ducati, improving upon his best lap from this week’s pre-season test, also edging out factory Yamaha riders Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo.
“We’re all pretty satisfied with this first free practice because we worked well throughout the entire session, progressively improving with each outing,” Rossi commented.
“We modified the setup a little compared to the test, and we immediately found it to be better, to the point that within just a few laps, I improved on my time from Monday.
“The last run was particularly positive and my final lap time, done with a hard tyre that had 19 laps on it, was my best, a bit more than a tenth off of second place.”
Despite his positive performance on Thursday, Rossi knows that he’s going to have to keep improving if he’s to challenge for a podium come Sunday night.
“We know that if we want to have a good race on Sunday, we have to cut another five tenths, and we’ll try to do that tomorrow,” he added. “Anyway, although we still have to improve some more things on the bike, now I don’t have to push so hard and it is turning better.
“The shoulder is holding up well. It was only at the end that it started to lose a little strength, and tomorrow we’ll see how it reacts with two practice sessions. In any case, we’re happy today.”
Rossi’s teammate Nicky Hayden was 11th, around half a second off the pace of Rossi to commence season 2011.