Le Mans MotoGP: Shoulder still a worry for Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi has continued to express concern about his damaged right shoulder, despite storming to the 59th pole position of his career in Le Mans today.

The reigning world champion produced a brilliant lap of 1.33.408 to deny Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo his first pole position of the 2010 campaign.

Rossi was all smiles after claiming his first pole position of the season but he was also cautious about a lingering right shoulder problem.  

Stretched ligaments he suffered in a motocross training accident last month are continuing to hamper the Italian on board his factory Yamaha YZR-M1 machine.

The nine-times world champion said: “I made a long run today and my first worry for tomorrow is my shoulder. After ten or 12 laps I started to lose a bit of power so I will have to suffer a bit more than normal at the end of the race.”

Rossi said the issue with his shoulder was following an identical pattern to the previous race in Jerez.

The shoulder improve significantly over the weekend, but not sufficient to give Rossi a trouble free race.

Tomorrow’s French GP, which is round three of the 2010 MotoGP world championship, will be run over 28-laps in what is forecast to be hot and humid conditions.

And Rossi, who won the first race of the season in Qatar, said: “Like in Jerez the shoulder is coming better compared to yesterday, so I hope for another small step in the race. I might take some painkilling pills but not a lot. I prefer to have nothing because my problem is more the power than pain.

“I’m happy with my setting because we start from Friday in good shape. We improved a lot at Jerez on Monday and we have improved in every practice. I’m quite okay with just some details to improve for tomorrow.”

Rossi said he anticipated a close race tomorrow with less than half-a-second splitting the top five on the grid.

Lorenzo was only 0.054s adrift of his main title rival with Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa in third with a lap of 1.33.573.

Rossi added: “In every practice the difference between the top guys is very close. Until this afternoon with Jorge and Stoner the battle was very hard. But Dani arrived also and he had a good pace with the hard tyres, so I think it will be a funny race.”

Spaniard Lorenzo was content with second but still disappointed that he was unable to claim pole position.

The Jerez MotoGP winner said: “I couldn’t make the pole position and this year I still don’t have a pole. I am capable of doing fast lap times and while I’m not so happy not to get the pole position I’m not so worried for tomorrow.”