MotoGP: Yamaha satisfied with Valentino Rossi’s Bridgestone form

Valentino Rossi’s factory Yamaha team boss has declared his satisfaction with two podiums from the first three races after the Italian’s switch to Bridgestone tyres for 2008.

Rossi is yet to break his victory duck on Bridgestone tyres and of the four leading contenders in this year’s MotoGP world championship, he is the only one without a victory with Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo all topping the rostrum in 2008.

But Valentino Rossi’s Fiat Yamaha team boss Davide Brivio believes it is only a matter of time before the seven-times world champion gets back to winning ways.

Brivio told MCN: “Switching to Bridgestone has been an exciting and interesting process and discovering at every race a new solution, a new idea.

“It’s exciting for our technicians and engineers. We should be satisfied with what we have achieved so far but we know the potential is higher and we have to arrive at this potential as soon as possible.”

Brivio said the toughest race so far had been Qatar where Rossi faded from first to fifth, though he also dropped out of the lead to finish a distant third in Estoril.

“Fifth in Qatar was the real first lesson for us and in Jerez and Estoril we tried to apply what we learned. We have been on the podium but we still have to work very hard,” added Brivio, who said the Estoril result was still positive.

“We start every race wanting to win and when we went to Estoril we were told by the Bridgestone technicians that this would be their worst track so in the race we had mixed feelings.

“We defended well in a critical circuit and getting the podium in a difficult race for Bridgestone was a good result.

“We are still under a big development with the tyres, we are still learning about the tyres and the more we know we can make a better choice.

“We should be satisfied. We have been at or near the front in all the races and we were leading Qatar and Portugal.”