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Rossi excited about Isle of Man TT visit

MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi has confirmed that he will make his first visit to the Isle of Man TT races in June this year.

Valentino Rossi is to attend the Isle of Man TT races in June with Dainese, who are the Official Safety Partners of the event. Dainese founder and CEO Mr Lino Dainese will accompany Rossi and Italian MotoGP Legend Giacomo Agostini on the historic visit.

Rossi is to attend the Dainese Superbike Race on Saturday 6th June with Agostini, who raced on the famous Mountain Course between 1966 and 1972, winning 10 TT races, which then held World Championship status.

Fiat Yamaha star Rossi will complete a parade lap of the 37.73 mile (60.7 km) circuit before the start of the six-lap Dainese Superbike race. He will ride behind the course car on a 2009 Yamaha R1, flanked by eight of the famous Travelling Marshalls, who will be riding similar machines.

“I am fascinated by all sorts of motorsport and the Isle of Man is a destination and a race I have wanted to experience for a long time,” commented Rossi. “The MotoGP schedule is always very busy around this time of year, but this time the TT has moved dates a little and there is a week gap between Mugello and Catalunya, so now at last we have the opportunity.”

“I have seen many famous images from the TT races,” he added, “and of course I’ve heard so much about it from Giacomo (Agostini) and Mr Dainese who enjoyed the experience so much last year.”

After the Dainese Superbike race there will be a press conference involving Rossi, Agostini and TT Dainese rider Guy Martin (pictured with Rossi above) outlining Dainese’s future commitments to further improving safety for people who love active sports.

Rossi cites Jerez temperatures as big test for tyres

Fastest in MotoGP Free Practice 1, Valentino Rossi predicts a tough race for the premier class field if temperatures stay high in Spain.

A hot day in Jerez provided Valentino Rossi with the chance to shine in the opening practice for the Gran Premio bwin.com de España, as he set a scorching lap time that made him the only rider to breach the 1’40 mark on Friday.

Fiat Yamaha’s reigning MotoGP World Champion was at his stunning best as he opened the first European leg of the 2009 season, recording the fastest time of the day –a 1’39.647- on his second bike. More than anything, though, the day served as a chance for Rossi to get a step up on preparation for an all-important Sunday race and show that Casey Stoner hadn’t had the last word at Jerez during last month’s BMW M Award session.

“There was no car this time, but it was still a very important session for us. We modified something with our setting and tried to fix some of the problems from the first few races,” said the Italian after the 45-minute run.

“We worked through everything from the soft to the hard tyre very quickly, and we can see that for sure it will be a tough race for the tyres if the temperatures are like this.”

Rossi also revealed that the initial difficulty with his main Yamaha M1 hadn’t caused too much of a setback, adding that; “We had a little problem at the beginning of the session with the first bike, so we went out on the second bike. But the second one was ready; we needed to modify the schedule of the practice a bit, but it was ok.”

MotoGP practice continues on Saturday from 10.05am local time.

Rossi uncomfortable with windy Jerez conditions

Valentino Rossi believes gusts of wind were slowing him down at the Gran Premio bwin.com de España on Saturday.

Valentino Rossi looked like the man to beat on Friday at Jerez but he was unable to replicate a similar pace on Saturday, struggling to find the same feeling in windy conditions.

The reigning World Champion put in his best lap at the end of the QP session but was unable to knock Casey Stoner off the outside of the front row and had to settle for starting at the head of the second row for Sunday’s third race of the season.

Valentino Rossi - fourth

“I’m a bit unhappy because we had a few problems and it actually hasn’t been such a good day, it was also very windy which made it more difficult. Yesterday we were very fast from the start and we hoped to keep going like this today but we have lost some feeling and now I can’t ride and push how I want to. At the moment I am not happy with the setting for the race and we need to work hard to understand the situation and try to improve it because we must be stronger tomorrow. Now we will make a long meeting and try to find some solution to try for the warm-up tomorrow.”

Team Manager Davide Brivio

“Missing out on the first row means that tomorrow’s race will be a bit more difficult in the early stages. Our race pace and rhythm are not so bad but we still need to make some adjustments because our potential is a lot better than this. We have to make Valentino more comfortable so that he can ride how he wants to, so now our engineers will study the data and look to come up with something to improve the setting.”