Ducati likes to do things in style, but year in, year out it’s nearly always the same thing. They unveil their MotoGP Desmosedici’s very high up in the mountains with the alway’s spendid backdrop of the Dolomite mountains covered with snow.

Check out Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden snowmobiling, and notice that it’s Nicky who trys to restart Rossi’s Polaris snow mobile, sparing the Italian from using his arm and shoulder.

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Filippo Preziosi (preziosi btw means precious in Italian) has called the GP11 in these pics ’step zero’ because as he said during yesterday’s press conference “it represents the initial level from which we plan to evolve.” So that could mean that Ducati will be developing during the season, something that Casey Stoner lamented (at least according to Wayne Gardner) that he didn’t get while he was with the Italian team.

What have they changed in this year’s bike so far? Read what Preziosi and his team of engineers have come up with and re-watch this video from Sportmediaset that we posted on Christmas Eve.

“The principal characteristics are the evolution of the motor and of the throttle body thought to obtain, fundamentally, a flatter and more useable power curve. As for the chassis, the aerodynamics are completely new, with the goal of improving top speed, reducing consumption, and also reducing front lift as much as possible. Other aspects we’re working on for the Malaysia tests in February are the new frame, which has already undergone various tests of rigidity and flex—for torsion and under braking—a swingarm with different rigidity characteristics, and a fork that combines the 2011 hydraulics with the 42mm tubes, instead of 48.”

Continue reading: More Pics of Rossi, Hayden and the Ducati GP11

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Thanks to those lovely fellows at MCN (we hope that the food and drinks at Madonna del Campiglio are top notch), we can show you a walk around video of Valentino Rossi’s Ducati Desmosedici GP11.

In the background you can hear Sportmediaset’s MotoGP commentator, a very adoring and memerized Guido Meda saying: “Here’s the Ducati Desmosedici with it’s real rider.” (you can also hear Rossi calling out to Meda) Just by this one statement you can realize why Rossi is the superstar he is in Italy, and why we have a more than less biased commentary during the races.

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Not already tired of Ducati Vrooom are you, because here are the first pics of Valentino Rossi’s Ducati Desmosedici GP11 2011 livery.

We have to admit we were expecting way worse, but Aldo Drudi probably was told to go a little easier with the yellow on the bike. Consolation prize for those who are going to criticize the colours, at least this season television wise, we’ll finally be able to distinguish the two Ducati riders from each other.

We expect the studio pics to be coming in soon, so we can actually see more details of the GP11, that at first glance has shark gills, has kept the winglets and the fairing looks slightly bigger, probably due to Rossi’s height.

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