Rossi confident to fight at the front

The Fiat Yamaha rider, who had a crash in the morning free practice session causing him a light hand injury, expects a competitive race at Laguna Seca.

"My crash this morning was very unfortunate, because there's a very small section of the track where the new asphalt is at a different level to the kerb, and I lost the rear when I touched this," the seven-time world champion said.

"I paid a high price for a very small mistake! In fact I was very lucky because it's a bad place to crash, going 180km/h with the throttle open in third.

"I slid a long way on the track so when I came onto the gravel I was already going quite slowly, but it was a shock because I didn't expect it. I hurt the little finger of my left hand a little and also had some pain in the right hand, but after some treatment and ice I was okay to ride this afternoon.

"After this, the second row is not so bad and all the riders in front are fast, with a good pace, so I should be able to push hard from the start. I am expecting a very competitive race tomorrow but we have a good rhythm and I am quite confident that we can fight at the front.

"I want to say a big thank you to all my guys because they did an amazing job to rebuild the bike in just two hours."
 
Rossi's teammate Colin Edwards qualified eighth and, together with his team, is struggling to solve some technical problems with the bike.

"I'm disappointed with today because we've got some fairly serious issues to deal with, especially with the front tyre, and so far we haven't been able to find a way around the problem," said Edwards.

"We've turned everything upside-down but so far it hasn't worked. It wasn't much better with the qualifying tyre, the bike felt really nervous and basically spent the whole lap holding on instead of pushing.

"We're going to have a long meeting now and come up with some bright ideas for tomorrow!"