In a recent interview with Motosprint, Preziosi admitted that he is concerned Valentino Rossi's testing program might be affected by the rider’s physical condition.
"At the moment, the thing that worries me the most isn't a technical issue," Preziosi was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source. "I can't figure when he will have the physical condition to really push on the track. Valentino will come to Sepang fully recovered from a medical point of view, but physically he will have a big gap to make up.”
“After all, he'll come from a winter not dedicated to resting, but to working out to recover. Valentino will not have the chance to rest, while for riders at that level it's important to pull the plug a bit. Luckily he his super strong mentally, so he will come to the races in a strong psychological state of mind," he added.
According to Preziosi, while the veteran MotoGP rider will need to make as many laps as possible in order to adjust to the new machine, he might have to limit his testing mileage for fitness reasons.
"We'll have to be very able in asking him not to run too much," said Preziosi. "Temperatures are very high in Sepang and conditions are extreme. The priority is for him to recover 100 per cent during the winter, so for February and March it's fine to sacrifice some extra information from running on the track. We must be able to do without all the testing we'd like to do, otherwise we'd force Valentino into a hyper-activity on track that may slow down his recovery.”
"It's clear, however, that we will have to hold him back because he will want to understand and develop the bike as much as possible. To do that, he'll want to run plenty."
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