Before you read Ducati’s sanitized press release from the Aragon GP, you should know that a despondent Valentino Rossi admitted that all the things that Ducati have brought in so far, including the aluminium chassis have not solved his problems and that he isn’t riding as he should be.
Interviewed by Sportmediaset and Fuori Giri, he said, “At this point we’ve got a lot of questions.
We know that Stoner with this bike (which bike Vale, it’s completely different) was faster than I am and he rode it differently.
These things are hard to solve, I’m even slower on the straights.
I find it hard to ride this bike.
We’ve made changes, bringing new parts, but I do not think we’re solving a lot.
It’s not confusion, because what we’re trying doesn’t work.
“We have to try to get better, we’re trying different things.
We started with those that take less time and if this isn’t enough, everthing will have to be revised in the long run.
I can’t ride how I want to, I’m not on the bike as I should be, I’m riding badly and, contracted so we are also working on my riding position.
” (you just have to look at Rossi last year on the Yamaha, even with his shoulder problems and this year on the Ducati to spot the differences, he’s not even dangling his leg anymore as he hits his braking points).
And if this isn’t enough to lower your spirits, Nicky Hayden admitted to MCN’s Matthew Birt “It is clear we are not making any real progress.
They are working hard but truthfully I think we went backwards” and “Ducati is in a state of confusion about what is clear development direction for bike”.
Now you can read the press release after the jump.
Nicky Hayden:“I had a good start and was decent at the very beginning.
We knew tyre wear was going to be an issue, and we had a drop in performance after the first couple of laps.
It lost grip, and I also wasn’t able to load the bike well for turning.
I was okay in parts of the track, but compared to the fast guys, I was losing time in the last corner.
I hoped to hang onto the second group for a while, but it just wasn’t possible.
I’d like to have fought with Bautista on the last lap because he was on our pace, but Barbera and I were going back and forth, which hurt both of us and let him escape.
It’s unfortunate, because coming here we hoped that we could put up a better fight.
Still, this is the first race I’ve finished normally with the GP11.
1, since at Indy I reentered just to get points.
Hopefully that will help us to get some data and be better off in the future.
” Valentino Rossi:“It was definitely a difficult race, even if objectively speaking, we could have done a little better than we did.
We used the setup from yesterday morning, with which I had done some good laps with a very used tyre.
Unfortunately, in the race the rear tyre was sliding much more than it did in practice.
It was almost used up just when I was catching Nicky and his group.
That said, we’re still not where we should be.
We’re working on several fronts, with short-term solutions that haven’t been conclusive, and others that are longer-term and that I still hope can bring more substantial improvements.
We’ll see what they think at the factory.
For now, we’re still pretty far, and given that time is our biggest enemy, we’ll continue also working on development during the races.
”