14/10/2011

Rossi will get some more hefty painkillers for tomorrow's sessions

Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi is in more pain than he expected after the opening MotoGP free practice sessions at Phillip Island have strained the finger he injured in the crash which saw him end his Japanese Grand Prix early and put him 13th on today's free practice timesheet.

The Doctor is still suffering with the damaged pinky and that has added to setup woes which have seen his front-end grip problems return. The setup his team brought forward form Motegi hasn't worked but the Italian says he will make a lot of small changes, nothing huge.

"Today wasn’t easy, especially since we had hoped to be better immediately, like at Motegi two weeks ago, as this track is normally good for the Ducati. We started with the same setup, with just a small adjustment to the fork spring, but the feeling wasn’t the same. I wasn’t able to ride well today, in part due to the pain in my left pinky finger, which bothered me more than I expected, but especially because of the feeling with the bike. I’m not able to brake well or enter corners well," said the nine-time world champion.

"Tomorrow we’ll try stronger painkillers for my hand, and from a technical point of view, we’ll look for a different solution to improve the front and to do better than thirteenth place. We won’t change the setup completely. We’ll probably move the position of the front wheel, but we’re just talking about small changes.”