Rossi: Yamaha is competitive, we need to find another way
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Valentino Rossi takes confidence from the performances of Movistar Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales and Petronas Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo but concedes he still needs “to find another way to find a good feeling” with his M1.After using the summer break to recharge, which included attending his lifelong friend and assistant Uccio’s wedding, Rossi is eager to find a breakthrough with his 2019 Yamaha after struggling for a confident and fast feeling throughout the first half of the season.Having endured three consecutive retirements between Mugello and Assen, before taking an underwhelming eighth place at Sachsenring, Rossi has slipped to sixth place in the MotoGP riders’ standings and behind Vinales by five points.With Vinales recording victory at Assen and second place at Sachsenring, while Quartararo has grabbed pole positions and podiums at Montmelo and Assen, Rossi believes Yamaha has a competitive package but he has struggled to lockdown a comfortable setup and feeling on the bike.“The last races of the first part for us were very tough, very difficult. We don’t have the results that we expected, so we need to concentrate and work better and try to be stronger for this second part,” Rossi said.“In the last races but already from Jerez Quartararo and Maverick were very strong, which means the bike is competitive. We need to find another way to find a good feeling with the bike to ride at the limit.“I don’t know if it a problem of the approach, all I know is the problem from the last few races is we don’t have enough speed. We tried different things but I wasn’t competitive. We need to try the right way to ride the bike and be stronger.”Yamaha is reportedly readying its 2020 M1 prototype for the post-Brno test (August 5) and while Rossi is relishing what his team will try out he says his full focus remains on the race weekend before thinking further ahead.“The race is more important, but we will discuss after the race,” he said. “I hope we have something new, I think we have to work hard to be stronger and at the end what makes the difference is the total package between electronics and chassis.“MotoGP is difficult to divide the bike, it is one part altogether so we need to improve the package and usually the Monday test in Brno is important because you have something for next year.”
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