An incident-packed last Q2ย session of the season, held at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit this afternoon,ย saw Yamaha's Valentino Rossi secure seventh place on the grid for Sunday's Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana
Rossi was impatient to get things going in the Q2 session. As soon as the pit lane lights went green he dashed out on track aboard his YZR-M1, but he had to hold back due to traffic on his first lap.
Once the nine-time World Champion found himself some clear track space, he settled into tenth position.
He went on to improve his time on his third try, but didnโt better his position and held tenth place as he returned to the pits.
The Doctor was back out on track again with five minutes of the shoot-out remaining. Having dropped to 11th place, he put his head down and climbed up to eighth.
He gained another position on his fifth attempt.
The Italian had one lap remaining after the flag had come out, but he didn't improve on his 1โ30.848s and remained in seventh place, 0.951s from pole.
He will start the final showdown from the third row of the grid.
โIโm quite happy, because I was able to arrive directly in the Q2 with a tenth place, and after I improved a little bit in the afternoon,โ he said. โIn qualifying I was improving my position.โ
โIt was a good lap and I could have stayed on the second row, but unfortunately I made a mistake in the last corner, I arrived too fast, so I lost time.โ
โAnyway, the seventh place is not so bad, considering this weekend and our speed. I think we will do a very hard race tomorrow, because our pace isnโt fantastic, but itโs just the Saturday, so we need to try to do something for tomorrow and weโll see.โ
