Rossi, Dovi, Marquez on 'virtual pit boards'

Valentino Rossi says the virtual pit board technology can be a 'small help' as MotoGP riders prepare to use the equipment for the first time in a race this weekend at the Sachsenring in Germany.

Competitors will be able to receive text messages from their teams in a race situation after the riders' Safety Commission gave the go ahead after the system was previously used during free practice.

Use of the virtual pit board will be optional, however text messages sent by Race Direction, will continue to be mandatory. The messages sent to riders will be selected from a specific list of agreed options. In other words, teams cannot write whatever they like.

Nine-time world champion Rossi said: "For me it can be a help; I think it is not like the cars in Formula 1, when you are always in contact with the boss but especially in the car; when you are in the car you have a lot more free time from one corner to the other.

"With motorcycles you have a lot less time to read, so I think that anyway the riders have to take his own decision, but it can be a small help."

During the pre-race press conference at Assen on Thursday, championship leader Andrea Dovizioso said he did not believe the technology would have an adverse impact on a rider's ability to make decisions themselves on the track.

"No, in the Safety Commission we spoke a little bit about that and some riders didn't want more work to do during the riding because for some riders it is difficult to read when you are riding the bike.

"I am one of the riders happy to have more feedback to understand more the situation and to manage more in the situation."

Reigning world champion Marc Marquez said he saw some benefit in having the system, for example to alert a rider if he had incurred penalty.

"For me it can be a help, having more information if you have a penalty or something like this; it's more important than take the decision for a flag to flag race. Maybe you can have some input there, but especially I feel it is more on the pit wall [information], but of course it is good to have a message there because of a penalty or something, then you can read well."