Last October's exciting triumph over Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner marked the end of an era, being the Italian's last with Michelin tyres fitted to his Fiat Yamaha.
Having finished second to Pedrosa last time out at Jerez, the five time MotoGP world champion will now be aiming for nothing less than his first Bridgestone victory this weekend - as he also seeks to end a six-race losing steak, Rossi's longest since his debut 2000 season.
"Estoril last year was a great race; it was a fantastically close battle with Pedrosa and one of the high points of the season for us. It's also the last time I won a race and I hope that this is something we can repeat again this time!" said Rossi.
"Jerez was a very important race for us, second place in just our second race with Bridgestone and following the difficult result in Qatar it was very important, plus it gave confidence to everyone involved that our package is really coming together.
"Our bike was very strong and our tyres worked well until the end, then on Monday we had a test and were able to make some more important steps forward with Bridgestone. We have been working step by step but everyone is very focused and motivated and confidence is running high. Hopefully we are now ready to fight for the win!"
Rossi is the most successful rider in Grand Prix history at Estoril, having finished on the podium on each of his eight visits to the circuit, including five race victories.
"Portugal is usually a good track for us and I've had a lot of very good races there, especially with Yamaha. It's a different time of year to when we raced there last year so the conditions might be a little different, but I think that we're going to be ready for anything!" he concluded.
After opening rounds held at Qatar and Jerez, teams and riders will tackle Estoril without the aid of any pre-season testing data.
"We have good memories of Estoril because it is the scene of Valentino's last victory, but we are actually expecting this grand prix to be quite tough for us," claimed Rossi's team manager Davide Brivio. "Anyway, Valentino likes the track and we go there on the back of a good race at Jerez and a very positive test so our intention is to fight.
"We tried some new tyres during the Jerez test that may be useful for this weekend but mainly the idea was to continue the job of adapting the bike and the Bridgestone tyres to each other and we made some small steps forward with this.
"We think the temperatures will be lower at this time of the year than they were when we last visited Portugal and it is always windy there so we're expecting the conditions to be more like Jerez last weekend than Estoril last year. If that's the case then we should be competitive and the fans can enjoy another great weekend of racing!" he concluded.
First free practice at Estoril takes place on Friday morning.
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