Sepang MotoGP: Valentino Rossi slow and struggling in 13th

Valentino Rossi had another instantly forgettable day on Ducati’s factory Desmosedici machine after the Italian finished the first day of practice at a scorching hot Sepang in a lowly 13th place.

The 32-year-old logged a best time of 2.03.677 to finish 2.427s behind Dani Pedrosa and only Hector Barbera was slower on a Ducati in intense heat and humidity at the Malaysian venue.

Rossi was 10th in the opening practice session this morning, but while he was able to improve his pace by almost 0.6s, the nine-times world champion dropped down the order by three places and said he expected to be at least 0.5s faster.

Rossi, who won his last MotoGP race at Sepang a year ago, said: “We modified the rear shock and improved the feeling. I can push more and I have more rear grip. From the bike I feel better because before I was in a bad, bad way. But unfortunately the lap time was not a big step. We expected to be like 0.5s faster, but no way.”

Rossi said his big trouble today was getting the finicky Desmosedici to negotiate Sepang’s fast and sweeping sections, which help make it the second longest track on the world championship schedule.

He added: “I am struggling in the fast corners. In braking I am not so bad. But I can’t bring enough corner speed into the corner, so I remain always too much with the brake and I lose more than in the slow corners.”

Rossi said it was hard to compare his performance of today with the two winter tests at Sepang back in February because of track conditions.

Several riders complained about a slippery surface and lack of grip and Rossi said: “It is difficult to make a comparison because the condition of the track is a lot different to the tests and everybody is more slow. But it looks like we don’t improve very much. The gap to the front now is also more, so it looks like the other guys improve more than us during the season.”