During today’s MotoGP qualifying session, Valentino Rossi hit a new time low, qualifying only sixteenth on the starting grid of seventeen riders with the highly tooted Ducati GP11.1 (2012 chassis and the DST) which debuted at Assen which was supposed to be the cure to all of Rossi’s problems and solve the chronic front end problems, is now officially a very expensive prototype dud.

Rossi, who more than 1.6 seconds slower than pole man Casey Stoner, was also 0.925s slower than team mate Nicky Hayden who is running the GP11 step 2 version and it took the Italian the better part of and three a half race weekend’s to realize that the GP11.1 is a dead carbon fiber horse, and no matter how much you flog it, it’s just not moving and now it may be time to switch back to the version that Hayden is currently using.

“We are very upset, because we are struggling very much this weekend. I am very slow and close to last,” said a despondent Rossi, who was lucky Loris Capirossi wasn’t healthy and riding or he’d be the last on the grid. “For three races now we’ve used the new bike to try to improve on the performance of the old one. I tried this bike with the 1000 engine and it was not so bad, but with the 800 engine the bike became very difficult to ride and I cannot load the front of the bike. So our performance at the last three races has been very, very bad. Especially in practice. And here it has been worse.

Continue reading: Valentino Rossi ready to write off the GP11.1

....

2 comments

This weekend’s Sachsenring GP has been pretty calm so far with no rider vs another (just Barbera and Hayden in qualifying ,with the Spaniard getting a €1000 euro fine for flipping a finger at the Ducatista), no sniping and the only topics worth talking about have been about Bridgestone’s tires and the fact they need to bring more, Valentino Rossi struggling more than ever on the GP11.1, so some rumors and gossip have surfaced, so here they are.

HRC due the continuing economic crisis and the problems with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, have at the moment confirmed only two factory bikes next season, one for Casey Stoner and one for Dani Pedrosa, while Andrea Dovizioso who is currently third in the standings with all probability will be left without an official ride and end up in a satellite Honda team, and not even a factory bike to his name.

Marco Simoncelli currently rides a full blown RC212V factory bike, but will not have one next year unless team manager Fausto Gresini pulls out his own euros to pay for it, however Simoncelli is a big bleep on Ducati’s radar and his dad and ‘consultant’ Carlo Pernat are in talks with the Italian manufacturer, because it seems that Phillip Morris (Marlboro) is willing to dish out some big sponsorship money to give this popular Italian a third factory bike.

Continue reading: MotoGP gossip and rumors from Sachsenring

....

2 comments