Ducati fans all around the world got their feathers all in a ruffle, when it was announced that the Italian manufacturer wouldn’t be fielding a factory team in the 2011 World Superbike Championship, with hard core protests aimed directly at Valentino Rossi, because Ducatisti believe that all of their racing resources are being drained in only one direction.
However Colin Edwards in a very interesting interview with Superbikeplanet.
com confirmed in his usual candid way, that the pull out was not due only to Rossi’s arrival in Ducati, but also due to the current WSBK rules, that Ducati considered penalizing.
The Texan was heavily linked to move to the Ducati Xerox team in July, which was also confirmed by Ernesto Marinelli, back in July.
In the interview, besides numerous other things, Edwards was asked about about the negotiations with the Superbike team, that went down before the Sachsenring GP.
“Pretty quickly agreed on a bunch of numbers, term of contract and that kind of stuff.
Nothing written down on paper, but just kind of, hey.
They had said, “We don’t know if we’re staying.
” They told me up front, “Don’t count on us.
We might not stay.
We would like to stay.
If we do stay, we want you.
”“With Valentino coming over, that’s going to be a big pull out of a lot of their resources, but at the same time, they were still, at that time, full forward about staying in Superbike.
But they needed some rules tinkered around with.
Obviously that fell through, and they just said, “Screw it.
We’re not going to race in a series that we can’t win.
”Obviously Edwards words won’t calm down hopping mad fans, but it should at least make them think that Ducati does like the game book to be more on their side.