After being thoroughly dissed after his disastrous qualifying at Mugello with both Hector Barbera and team mate Nicky Hayden finishing in front of him on the starting grid, Valentino Rossi had the small satisfaction of finishing fifth in today’s race at Mugello and his best finish in the dry.
The Italian even joked about all the negative comments he received and asked journalists where Barbera finished, because he didn’t see him … , but he turned serious when he talked to Sportmediaset about his commitment which he says “is always 110%” adding “I certainly don’t like be slower than the other Ducati’s and finding myself in 10th -11th.
“The Ducati bike is diametrically opposite to my riding style: I’d like to win this challenge, or at least try to be better than today, so we must we try to the end.
For me there’s a way: it isn’t easy, but we have to find the right idea to solve these problems.
Compared the last few races we have improved, but it’s hard to fight with Yamaha and Honda because they are scarily fast and have taken another step forward.
““Overall, I think today was the best dry result of the year for Ducati, because Nicky had a great race as well,” commented Valentino Rossi.
“We’re quite happy, as our pace was very good, especially toward the end.
Unfortunately, I lost time at the beginning.
Not only was I on the fourth row, but I also had a bad start.
I got by some riders pretty quickly, but by then I had already accumulated too much of a disadvantage.
Otherwise, I think it would have been possible to make the podium.
We’re having too much trouble in practice.
Normally we’re able to have a decent rhythm with the hard tyres, but when we put on the soft, we can’t manage to cut those six or seven tenths that the others drop.
For two races, we’ve worked on a setting that allows us to be consistent until the end of the race, but at the same time, it gives me more trouble with the front.
When I put on the soft tyre, the extra grip makes that problem worse and I’m not able to effectively initiate corner turn-in.
We have to work on that area.
We have a test day tomorrow, so we’ll see.
”Nicky Hayden showed fans that the Ducati can be fast even if he finished 7th after tangling with an impressive Stefan Bradl.
He also admitted that the used tire that he mounted for this morning’s warm-up had blistered and Bridgestone wanted him to use the extra-hard compound which he refused to do because he hadn’t tested it during practice, instead they went for a different tire pressure that caused him some trouble at the start of the race.
“I got a good start, but I was spinning a lot in the beginning, and I thought I was going to destroy the tyre.
Once I went to a smoother map, I was able to really start driving off the corners and bringing the group back.
Those last seven, eight laps, I really gave it everything; I wasn’t sure I was going to finish, but I was sure I was going to go for it.
On the last lap, after I went by Bradl for fourth, I was only thinking about trying to pass ‘Dovi’ and get the Ducati on the podium, so I don’t regret the fact that I tried.
In the end, we can’t be happy with seventh, but I hope all the Ducati fans that came to support us can be proud of this team this weekend.
They gave me a good bike, and we really had a shot at the podium today,” said Hayden