Today’s qualifying session at Silverstone, wasn’t about Casey Stoner taking another pole position, everyone is used to him dominating free practices and qualifying sessions whether it was on a Ducati or on a Honda, or will Marco Simoncelli be able to repeat his outstanding weekend performance and finally make it count on race day or if Jorge Lorenzo’s M1 will have enough bite to keep up with Stoner’s Honda, but the biggest question is WTF happened to Valentino Rossi?To see Valentino Rossi floundering around in 13th is angering Ducatisti, especially Italians who no longer have the patience with a rider who is a 9 times World Champion and gets millions euros a season and can’t even beat a rookie like Karel Abraham in qualifying, especially since Casey Stoner has shown everyone that the Desmosedici can win races.
These same Italians are even demanding that Ducati’s CEO Gabriele Del Torchio step down from his position because he’s the one who wanted an old, injured and over the hill Rossi in the first place just for marketing purposes and let someone like Stoner go.
This is what a despondent Rossi had to say after today’s qualifying session and he seems just as confused as everyone else is on why he can’t get the GP11 that has more upgrades than anyone can count as he’s demanded and still can’t get it to work.
“It’s been a very difficult day—actually, a very difficult weekend.
We were a long way off Friday, but in a way it was understandable since I didn’t know the track.
Today, though, I had hoped to do much better, but we only lowered our time by one second, while the others cut two.
The gap is considerable, and we’re even having trouble compared to the other Ducatis, so evidently we haven’t managed to work well at this track.
I’m having difficulty riding, I’m slow on corner entry, and I’m not able to take the lines I want.
We found many things with the bike’s settings, but without making progress.
They’re saying it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so we’ll see.
I don’t think we can be as competitive in the wet as we have been on other tracks, but it would probably be a bit better than dry.
Anyway, we have to do the best with what we have.
”“Although we had problems, this is my best qualifying position of the year, but to be two seconds off is too much.
We tried some options to get it better, but from my first outing of the weekend, we haven’t really gone much faster,” said Nicky Hayden.
“We tried stuff to make it better—maybe we tried to do too much—and we haven’t improved.
Certainly the front isn’t good over the bumps, and the rear is spinning a lot and moving around.
It was pretty frustrating, really, but I hope for rain tomorrow.
Doing 20 laps in the wet around here wouldn’t be easy, but I think it would help our chances.
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