Yamaha leads way to Laguna

From Yamaha Racing

The Fiat Yamaha Team leaves behind a two-month road trip across Europe this week as it takes flight for America for its final appointment before the midseason break, with Valentino Rossi in fine form and on top of the MotoGP World Championship.

After a rain-hit run of six races in eight weeks, culminating in last Sunday's Sachsenring splashdown, a trip to the sunshine state of California for the US Grand Prix could not have come at a better time and it represents an opportunity for Rossi to consolidate his series lead before a well-earned holiday.

Second place in Germany, combined with a zero-point score for his closest title rival Dani Pedrosa, has given the Italian a 16-point advantage in the chase for the title with eight races remaining, although Sunday's race winner Casey Stoner lurks just four points further back in third place.

Having been absent from the US podium since taking third when MotoGP returned to Laguna Seca in 2005, Rossi's target is to recreate Yamaha's success during the track's first spell on the Grand Prix calendar between 1988 and 1994, when the factory won five of the six premier-class races.

"Laguna hasn't been one of my favourite tracks in the three years since we've been going there and it's one of the only ones on the calendar where I haven't won," Rossi said. "It's been a hard track for our bike but it's been a very good track for Bridgestone and I am confident that our package will work very well there.

"The last two years I've had serious disappointments in the race and it's been one of the low points of both seasons. I hope I have had all the bad luck I'm going to have there and that this year I can enjoy myself. We are going there with the same package that we had in Germany and so we're going to have to work very hard to close the gap in performance to Stoner; we can't afford to start from anywhere except the front because, with him in this form, it is then very hard to catch him."

After struggling for confidence over the past four rounds following a run of crashes, Jorge Lorenzo is hoping to bounce back from his latest setback, a third lap spill at the Sachsenring, on his first visit to Laguna Seca as a MotoGP rider. The Mallorcan did attend the USGP last season, however, as an expert for Spanish television, having already fallen in love with California during the previous winter when he went to ride dirt-track under the tutelage of Yamaha legend 'King' Kenny Roberts at his Modesto ranch.

That experience could come in handy this weekend at the notoriously capricious circuit, where the intense dry heat, unpredictable asphalt and anti-clockwise layout reward the loose and aggressive riding style perfected in the dust bowls of the west coast. As the rear slides around, the front wheel is often left spinning in thin air through the dramatic elevation changes and fast, sweeping corners - none of them more spectacular than the world-famous 'Corkscrew'.

Machine set-up is relatively straightforward, with throttle connection a much more important factor than top-end power and a well balanced chassis the key to those elevation changes and diverse corners.

"I am looking forward to riding at a place with such famous corners as the corkscrew," Lorenzo said. "I know it's a difficult place but I am feeling stronger and I will be doing my best to get to know the circuit as quickly as possible and find a good feeling with the bike there. We need to work hard from that start, together with Michelin, to improve the grip issues we've been having.

"I am still disappointed about Sachsenring but luckily I wasn't hurt and it's good to have the chance to move on quickly and focus on the next race."