Fourth Row for Rossi After Tight Qualifying at Assen

26-06-2021

Fourth Row for Rossi After Tight Qualifying at Assen

Valentino Rossi to start DutchGP from 12th on the grid, Garrett Gerloff 22nd.

PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team’s Valentino Rossi will start tomorrow’s DutchGP at Assen from 12th on the grid, while team-mate Garrett Gerloff ended his first ever MotoGP qualifying in 22nd.

Consistently improving upon his time from yesterday throughout FP3, Rossi was able to put in a series of strong time attacks and briefly held fifth. The Italian secured a direct place in Q2, setting a 1min 32.894secs lap that placed him ninth. Valentino also demonstrated good race pace in FP4, ahead of a qualifying session that saw the majority of riders separated by the smallest of margins. Rossi got in an early banker lap that placed him tenth, before his second run of 1min 32.919secs saw him end Q2 in 12th – which translates to a fourth row start for tomorrow’s race.

Gerloff also continued to make improvements throughout FP3 and bettered his lap time from yesterday by 1.5secs – 1min 34.254secs. The Texan unfortunately experienced technical issues on his final run and so he ended FP3 22nd, which saw him head into Q1. Garrett’s first ever MotoGP qualifying session saw him set his fastest lap of the weekend so far – 1min 33.739secs. He looked set to improve further on his final flying lap, but lost some time in the final sector. He will start his debut MotoGP race from 22nd on the grid.

Warm up for Rossi and Gerloff will commence tomorrow at 9.40am local time (3.40pm MYT), before the 26-lap MotoGP race gets underway at 2pm local time (8pm MYT).

Valentino Rossi

"Today was quite positive for us because I have had a good pace from the beginning of this morning and I have felt good with the bike. We have continued to work on the settings, because we don’t feel that they are 100%, but in the end I did a very good lap in FP3 and went straight to Q2. FP4 was also a positive session, as I did some good lap times at the end of it with the hard rear and had good pace. I was hoping to improve my time slightly in Q2 by two or three tenths but, alone on track, I was unable to do so. Now we have to wait to see what the conditions are tomorrow to understand which tyre to use, but I hope it is dry. We will need to get a good start, be strong in the opening laps and stay with the group, hopefully this way we can have a good race."

Garrett Gerloff

"I’m a little frustrated because I think I could have put my sectors together better across one lap and I didn’t do that, but it’s not too bad. Every time I go out I’m trying to learn something new and get used to the bike more. The team has been amazing, we’ve been making really good progress every time I’m out on track and the bike is feeling even more comfortable than it did. In the beginning it was very different from what I was expecting but we’re working in a good way. It would have been nice to be higher on the grid, but I’m doing the best that I can. My goal was to keep improving and so far I’ve done that. Tomorrow I’m hoping I can ride with someone and see their lines, learn some things and maybe make a couple of passes – that would be really good."