Seventh place for Valentino Rossi at Brno

Following a very promising warm-up session on a wet track, Valentino Rossi’s race in the Czech Republic proved to be more difficult than anticipated. An oil leak, which didn’t hurt engine performance, nonetheless certainly affected riding conditions for the Italian. When he also suffered a loss of tyre grip, he was forced to slow and eventually finished seventh.

The Ducati Team will now travel to the Misano circuit, where Valentino will participate in a two-day test on Tuesday and Wednesday. His teammate Nicky Hayden will miss the test while he recuperates in the United States, but he is expected to return for the Grand Prix of San Marino.

“I started well and the early laps weren’t bad, although the bike started to lose oil right from the beginning. It went on the footrests and the brake- and shift levers, which bothered me, as my feet were slipping everywhere. I probably could have done a bit better without that inconvenience, and maybe I would have finished close to Dovizioso. Anyway, I also had to slow down because the rear tyre began sliding too much after some laps, which has been our problem. Now we’ll see in the test at Misano in two days if we can manage to find something to help us in the last races.”

“The weekend started well. We improved steadily in every session, but the race didn’t play out positively for us. After the early laps, the bike suffered a loss of grip with the rear tyre, and Valentino lost contact with the leaders. As for the oil leak, we analysed the engine data and we have confirmed that there’s nothing unusual and that engine performance wasn’t affected. It certainly made riding more difficult because it made the footrests very slippery. We have a two-day test with Valentino at Misano on Tuesday and Wednesday, and we’ll work primarily on the chassis.”