A fifth place in the San Marino GP handed Rossi a 23-point advantage over Movistar Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo, who fell toward the end of the race. Rossi aims to carry on the momentum gained at his home round and is looking for his best ever Aragon GP finish. Aragon and Austin are the only two circuits on the current GP calendar in which Rossi has not won, his best finish a third in 2013. Last year’s race saw the experienced Italian suffer a DNF. If this were to occur again, the World Championship could return to a level playing field in terms of points. Even with a strong race Rossi will have his work cut out for him, Lorenzo having only finished off the podium once in Aragon.
Yamaha has had multiple private tests at the Aragon circuit and should start the weekend with a strong base, able to focus on the finer details. In Misano, Yamaha also debuted their new winglets and, while no major impact was felt at the seaside track, the long straight at Aragon should see the winglets play a more major role. Winglets on a motorcycle can serve a variety of purposes, but the Yamaha ones are said to help with stability at high speed, theoretically helping to reduce rider fatigue at they have to battle the bike less.
“As I said many times, now every race has its own story,” said Rossi. “There are five races from here to the end of the season. If that‘s many or few, I don't know, it depends on your point of view, but I do know that it will be important to win races. Now we go to Aragón, a track where we have tested some weeks ago. The results were positive but also Jorge, my teammate, went very fast. Our competitors are usually strong here too, so it will be a very challenging weekend. We have to work well from the first day and hopefully the received data from the tests will help us. The atmosphere in the team is very good, I feel good and we're ready to get back on the podium!”
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