Valentino Rossi officially opened his new adventure in the FIA World Endurance Championship by completing the Prologue tests with satisfaction.
At the wheel of the BMW #46 which he shares in the LMGT3 Class with Maxime Martin and Ahmad Al Harthy, the Team WRT representative tried to acclimatise as best as possible to the Lusail track, previously known only on two wheels.
Rossi worked hard with the team between Monday and Tuesday, putting together several laps and understanding how and where to improve an M4 GT3 that initially didn't seem to be in very good shape, but along the way he brought optimism back to the Belgian team's trio.
Valentino also achieved a good 1'55″473 as the crew's best lap in Session 4, managing to grow in race pace by descending from laps in 1'58″/1'57″ up to 1'56″ which is well hope for the rest of the weekend.
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3: Ahmad Al Harthy, Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin
Photo by: Shameem Fahath
“We did a good job, in the morning I didn't feel comfortable with the car, I had too much understeer and the tires heated up a lot, putting me in difficulty”, explains the boy from Tavullia.
“Instead in the afternoon I worked together with the team, we fixed the balance and I felt much better, putting together a lot of laps.”
“In the end the pace was good, it was a positive day and we're finishing these tests well. Now we'll look at all the data and see how we fare in the race weekend.”
Finally, for fans of the 'Doctor' there is always great anticipation in discovering the helmet he will wear for the new season; this year too, the Drudi Performance studio was responsible for the creation of the design to be placed on Valentino's Bell.
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3: Ahmad Al Harthy, Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
“We worked together with Aldo Drudi, Stefano and Davide aka DID. For the 2024 helmet we started from last year's idea, it came out very well and was a great success with the design of the flames. At the beginning I wasn't very convinced because I It seemed a bit tacky, but instead it was beautiful.”
“So for this year we tried to evolve the 2023 helmet, moving the sun and moon to the front and back, whereas previously they were on the sides.”
“We continue with the flames, but the base is darker because we wanted the sun and moon to be seen better since with last year's white helmet they were a bit lost.
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