Rossi wary of Honda threat

Valentino Rossi was pleased with his efforts on the opening day of the Dutch TT with the nine times world champion evaluating a new chassis and coming away impressed. The new Yamaha frame was tested initially at Aragon but Rossi explained that there hadn’t been enough time on the bike during the test to fully understand if the upgrade offered a performance improvement.

“I’m very happy and satisfied about this first day,” said Rossi. “It was an important day, especially for the weather conditions. Very great conditions and you have to use this dry time to the maximum to understand the setting of the bike because you never know about the weather at Assen. At the same time we had the chance to understand about the new chassis from the test in Aragon. I’m happy because already from this morning when I put the new chassis I improved my lap time, my pace and I felt good with the bike.”

Rossi finished the day third fastest, a big improvement on his typical one lap pace in 2015, and afterwards he was pleased with his performance but admitted to being wary of the potential of the Honda this weekend after seeing Pedrosa and Marquez finish ahead of him.

“At the end I put the medium tyre and I did some very good lap times, also with the pace I’m not so bad. So in general it is a positive day. The track is great, the bike worked well. The only problem are the Hondas, because looks like both Hondas are very strong and we are always very worried about the Hondas because they have the old chassis and both the riders Marquez but also Pedrosa are very fast, very strong. So it’s good to stay with them, be in third position and be a small difference from first.”