Zoom Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi made a strong start to his second home race of the season today, finishing second on the opening day of action at the San Marino Grand Prix.

The Misano circuit is just 15km north of the Fiat Yamaha rider's home town of Tavullia on the Adriatic coast, and the local hero is keen to delight his hordes of fans by adding another Italian win to his victory in Mugello earlier this year.

The bad weather that has followed the paddock around Europe finally gave way to the Italian summer today, with temperatures in the low 30s soaring to 45 degrees on track. This morning saw Rossi in fifth but a few set-up changes and some work on Bridgestone tyres this afternoon saw him improve and he finished the session 0.418 seconds off Casey Stoner in second.

“We made quite a good start today but not as good as we could have hoped, so we still have some work to do in order to close the gap to Casey. At the moment the main problem is T4, where I am quite slow and so we really need to look at the data and work out why”, commented the Doctor. “Anyway we're still second so we're close, but I hope tomorrow to be closer because it seems that everyone is quite competitive here so we're going to have to work hard. We have some ideas and we will see what we can do. It's great to be racing in the sunshine so close to my home, on the track which was the first one I ever rode on, and I really hope we can make it a fantastic weekend for all of the fans. ”

“For the first day it hasn't been so bad and we're in quite good shape”, added Team Manager Davide Brivio. “It's clear that there are some areas in which we can and need to improve, so now we will use the information we have gathered today to work on those areas and refine our set up. We have worked through a few different things today on the setting and we have also tried some different tyres, and we're confident that we have good potential. Luckily, for once, we can expect the same weather again tomorrow so this will give us the chance to check everything we've learnt today.”

His team-mate Jorge Lorenzo also had a positive day, finishing seventh in the combined standings.

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