Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi took his time in FP1 to get up to speed at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan this morning.
The trackโs various heavy braking zones make it vital to get the tyres up to temperature.
Despite still recovering from his leg injury, the nine-time World Champion made progress, especially towards the end of the session, and finished 19th with a lap of 1โ58.618s, 3.200s from first.
With the weather conditions barely improving for FP2, the Doctorย made some changes to increase downforce.
He started working on the feeling of the rear of his bike going into the corners, and was able to improve his time by more than two seconds to a 1โ56.435s by the end of the day.
He finished less than 1.558s from the top, good for 12th position.
The result also keeps him in 12th place in the combined times, ahead of tomorrowโs sessions
โI'm in some pain, but it's not a big problem,โ he explained. โUnfortunately we struggle, because today we had two complete practices in the full wet and we could work on the setting, but both sessions were not fantastic. We are a bit in trouble, the bike is a bit difficult to ride and we don't have enough rear grip, so it's difficult. We hope that the conditions become better, or we try something tomorrow and we'll see.โ
