Valentino Rossi ended the final day of testing at Jerez a little more relaxed after having taken the sixth spot on the final day of testing at Jerez and managing to shave off more than eight tenths of second from his lap time to finish 0.
935s from Casey Stoner in the final hour of the day.
However the former World Champion who hasn’t won a race since his controversial move to Ducati in 2011 isn’t holding his breath – and neither are we – that in Qatar he’ll be able to futher cut that gap and he’ll end up battling with the middle of the pack, which currently seems to be his potential.
The Italian admitted he still had understeer problems remarking that “it is something in the bike’s DNA” but the front end woes he’s experiencing were a little less intense when they returned to the Sepang 1 set-up and he “trusted” the bike a little more which allowed him to ride like he wants to.
“I am happy because it is a sixth place and this is our potential now.
We can squeeze the potential of the bike and Rossi and Ducati are here.
For me this is the more real test and we will work in the season for improve.
For me, for the podium, Stoner and Lorenzo and Pedrosa are a lot faster than us but it depends also track by track what is our potential.
Today went much better than Friday, and I’m pleased… we’re pleased.
Unfortunately, we made some mistakes at Sepang II chasing a bad setup, and we paid for that a bit on Friday because we started from that base.
”Saturday’s rain cost us an entire day, but today we finally worked well all day long.
Step by step, we arrived at our current potential: I’m sixth, and I did a 1.
39.
7s, which is a good time considering that we’ve only really ridden this bike for six or seven days.
We changed the setup, first the rear and then the front, and now I enter the corners pretty well again.
I’m able to lean and I can ‘risk’ a bit more.
Although we know very well that we still have a long road ahead, if we look at the gap to the front we can say we’re ready for the first race.
”Nicky Hayden took a slight step backward in today’s test finishing in 8th after having been the top Ducati rider during the first two days, but as usual the American rider is quite pragmatic and always sees the glass half full rather than half empty.
“It’s been a very, very busy day.
With my injury affecting the last Tests, we needed to squeeze a winter’s worth of testing into this weekend, and yesterday was basically a wash,” said Hayden.
“Today we got to try some stuff on the bike and learned a few things.
I’m not thrilled with my lap time because I thought I could go a bit quicker but I struggled a little with the fast corners.
We’ve clearly got some work to do, but now it’s time to get ready for Qatar, and I look forward to starting the season.
I definitely feel better after coming here and getting to ride at close to 100 per cent and getting to understand the bike a bit more.
Now it’s time to see what we’ve got when we put the cards on the table.
”