Although Day 1 of the Qatar testing has once again been dominated by Honda, whose works riders and privateers have scored the Top 3 lap times on Monday, the Doctor ended the day with a smile on his face, as his Desmosedici GP11 has shown a great deal of progress as compared to the last group test in Sepang.
Rossi finished the Monday action with the 8th best time of the field, but was less than 8 tenths of a second slower than pace-setter Dani Pedrosa. This is the closest he has ever been in the timing sheets to the leading Hondas, and he reckoned it's very important it happened one week before the start of the season.
“We have quite good pace, we are not so far [off]. We are just in eighth position so for sure we have to improve the maximum performance. But we have some ideas, some modifications to try tomorrow,” said Rossi in an interview with the MotoGP official website.
“For sure tomorrow will be an important day because the race is just next week. We have to try to do better. But I'm happier than in Sepang because we are just seven tenths behind. Everybody is very close,” added the Italian rider, who admitted that he pins his hopes on a further improvement from his bike on the updates to be tested on Tuesday.
The 2011 MotoGP season kicks off later this week, in Qatar, with the first and only night race of the series scheduled on the Losail International Circuit.
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