Valentino Rossi looking to break American jinx

Valentino Rossi will be looking to bury his American jinx and extend his MotoGP world championship lead in this weekend’s Laguna Seca clash.

Laguna is one of the rare tracks where the 29-year-old has never managed to collect a victory, but he heads to California holding a 16-point lead over injured Spaniard Dani Pedrosa after the factory Honda crashed out of the Sachsenring race last Sunday.

Rossi said: “Laguna hasn’t been one of my favourite tracks in the three years since we’ve been going there and it’s one of the only ones on the calendar where I haven’t won. We’re aiming to win this week, that’s for sure! It’s been a hard track for our bike but it’s been a very good track for Bridgestone and I am confident that our package will work very well there. The last two years I’ve had serious disappointments in the race and it’s been one of the low points of both seasons, I hope I have had all the bad luck I’m going to have there and that this year I can enjoy myself! We are going there with the same package that we had in Germany and so we’re going to have to work very hard to close the gap in performance to Stoner; we can’t afford to start from anywhere except the front because, with him in this form, it is then very hard to catch him. California is a great place and this year we will be doing all we can to leave it with good memories, not bad ones.”