An upbeat Valentino Rossi will enter this weeekend’s MotoGP World Championship round at Estoril confident he can continue to make inroads as he and Ducati further develop the Desmosedici GP11.
Rossi has won five times in his eleven premier-class visits to the track, and he has finished on the podium on other five occasions in Portugal.
“With the postponement of the Japanese GP, we’ve had three weekends without a race, so I was able to ‘unplug’ for a while following the GP12 test at Jerez, although I continued training to help my physical recovery,” Rossi said.
“Now we go to Estoril, a track I quite like, where we’ll continue working on the GP11’s setup, particularly during the test on Monday. The conditions are often unpredictable at Estoril because the area is very windy and close to the ocean, making for variable weather, especially in the spring.
“Anyway, although we saw at Jerez that we’re already competitive in the wet, we’re hoping for sun in Portugal so that we can make the most of our time on the track.
“We still have to understand the bike better, and to work on the setup with the goal of being faster in the dry in time for the most intense phase of the season, when we’ll have six races in eight weeks starting in June.”
Last season at Estoril, Rossi finished second behind world champion Yamaha star Jorge Lorenzo.