Keen on making the most of the dry session time on day one on Phillip Island, Valentino Rossi made a positive start to the Australian GP.
Although riding with pain in his right shoulder, resulting from last week's crash, he steadily upped his pace at the start of FP1.
He briefly moved up inside the top-10, before he concerned himself with the set-up of his Yamaha. He set a 1'30.553s best lap as the session progressed and finished in 13th place, 0.951s from first.
The Doctor booked solid progress in the afternoon, quickly positioning his YZR-M1 inside the top-5.
While he resumed his work, further fine-tuning the balance of his bike, the pace of the field increased.
The Italian responded at the end of the session by dipping under the 1โ30 mark with a 1'29.977s.
He bettered his morning time by more than half a second, but it wasn't enough for him to secure a position inside the top-10 and he ended the first day in twelfth place in the FP2 and combined results, with a 0.752s-margin to the front-runner.
โThe position, unfortunately, was quite bad,โ he said. โIt was important to try and stay inside the top-10 today, because here on Phillip Island you never know what will happen tomorrow with the weather, but apart from that we worked a lot and the feeling with the bike is not bad.โ
โI tried another modification at the end with the softer tyre, which has better potential, but unfortunately I didnโt like it a lot, especially in the fast corners, so for this reason I wasnโt able to improve enough to stay inside the top-10. We have a lot to do, also the tyre choice front and rear is still open, so I hope for good conditions tomorrow.โ
