Rossi: Practice cuts will hamper rookies

Valentino Rossi says the reduction in track time and testing time for all the grand prix classes will give an advantage to the most experienced riders and leave rookies struggling.

With Friday morning free practice cut from the weekend schedules and other sessions trimmed, plus no post grand prix testing at most tracks, Rossi intimated that it will be harder for riders new to the class to have an impact such as Jorge Lorenzo did last year. The Spaniard started his MotoGP career with a string of poles and won his third race on a top-class bike.

"When the young riders arrive into MotoGP they need a lot of kilometres to understand the bike and arrive at the limit," said Rossi.

"For the young guns who arrive in the future, it will be harder than in the past. I remember when I started with the 500cc in 2000 in the winter of 1999 to 2000 I did a lot of kilometres, and (the same) during the season and now it's disappeared so for the younger riders it becomes more difficult and maybe the experience that already everybody has becomes more important."

Rossi had significant time testing the first four stroke MotoGP bike at Suzuka during August 2001, well ahead of the new MotoGP class that commenced in April 2002.

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