MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli is aiming on getting second place in the upcoming MotoGP championship. However, says that he needs to solve the tyre pressure problems which led to him finishing the race in "Safety Mode".
Franco Morbidelli sets his first priority for the weekend's Valencia MotoGP. He and his team are finding solutions to the front tyre pressure issue which resulted in Morbidelli to lose pace.
Morbidelli held strong to the seventh position during the early stages of the race, however, slipped back to eleventh by the time the chequered flag came out.
"The biggest issue we had was with the pressure in the front tyre," Morbidelli said. "When we are running in the pack, we are noticing some problems with the pressure and we cannot fight how we want."
Petronas Yamaha team-mate Fabio Quartararo previously struggled with tyre pressure problems which resulted him ending the race in 18th position.
"We need to analyse and look at how to make [the tyres] work better for us, look at what is the right window for them and why we had the issue that we did," Morbidelli said.
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"I don't know, physics and science [are] the same for everybody,” he said “So, I suppose with the temperature also other bikes suffer from this air expansion in the tyre. But I don’t know how much how it affects other bikes and I don’t know how much it expands in their tyres.”
The Italian came into last weekend's round 25-points from Joan Mir. Despite now slipping down to 45 from the top, Morbidelli is now just eight points from second place in the standings, currently a tie between Quartararo and Alex Rins.
“It was a difficult GP for us, very difficult, I was struggling a lot because, when we are riding in a group, there is this problem we have where the front pressure goes sky high and the front gets really, really difficult to ride and really, really difficult to manage and you just have to go into safety mode and bring the bike home in the safest way possible,” he explained.
“So, looking at that, I’m happy I was able to get the bike to the finish line with some points. The championship chances are almost gone, we are much further from Joan, who looks definitely to deserve this championship more than anyone else.
He added, “But the gap between me and the second got smaller, so we’re still in play for that.”
