Rossi: Yamaha still not "strong like last year" in wet

The seven-time premier class champion was sixth-fastest in wet conditions in Friday’s second practice session, 1.431 seconds off the pace established by Andrea Dovizioso. 

Yamaha struggled in the two most recent wet races, Misano and Motegi, with Rossi crashing out of the latter event while teammate Maverick Vinales unable to do better than ninth.

While Rossi said he felt improvement was made at Sepang, he insists the team still has work to do in order to recover its former level of competitiveness in such conditions.

“In the afternoon it was full wet and it was an interesting practice, we worked a lot to improve the bad situation we had in Japan in this bike,” he said. 

“It was coming better, I was able to improve my laptime and I arrive in P6.

“But my feeling is not fantastic, I don’t feel comfortable with the bike, I do not have enough rear grip and I cannot push at the maximum.

“We still have to work. We are not strong like last year, still.”

Rossi was more upbeat about his pace in the dry, despite only finishing the opening practice with the 12th-fastest time, a little under a second slower than Dovizioso.

The Italian said this was down to other riders equipping the soft rear late in the session.

“My feeling in the dry is not so bad,” said Rossi. “We have to work, but I was quite strong.

“It’s very difficult to understand [where we are], because in the last eight minutes, a lot of riders put on the soft rear and they improve a lot the laptime.

“Before that, except [Marc] Marquez who was very strong, I was not so bad with my speed.”

Vinales was quickest of the Yamaha contingent in FP2 with the fourth-quickest time, and said he was pleased to continue the wet progress he made at Phillip Island.

“Still we have to improve in some other areas because the tyres we have here are hard compounds,” said the Spaniard. “So very slippery.

“But the areas we needed to improve, we improve in Australia, I felt much better with the bike, especially with the front.

“All the confidence going into corners is much better than before. Now we have to make another step and try to improve.”

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont