Rossi suggests Ducati are closer than times suggest
Added on Thursday, March 17th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor
Rossi suggests Ducati are closer than times suggest
Valentino Rossi has admitted that Ducati still has a lot of work to do to bring the Desmosedici up to pace but suggested that the team is closer than the lap times from this week’s Qatar test suggest.
Rossi will make his Ducati debut this weekend in Qatar after a difficult pre-season, with a long-standing shoulder injury limiting his influence in testing and some disappointing results for the team from the new Desmosedici.
But the Italian believes that in the last test in Losail, the team is not as far behind as the time sheets suggest.
“For the first practice session in Qatar, we’ll start with the settings that we found on the last day of the test, because our final lap time notwithstanding, they weren’t bad,” claimed the former champion. “In fact, I think I could have gone faster if the strength hadn’t left my shoulder almost without warning before I had even tried the soft tires.
“The race weekend has sessions of 45 minutes and one hour, so it should be easier from that point of view. Naturally, my shoulder isn’t the only issue: if we want to have a good race, we know that in addition to me being physically ready, we’ll have to find some solutions that will help us be faster and improve our pace. In any event, the debut with Ducati brings a lot of motivation, and Sunday will definitely be very emotional. ”
Rossi also made a point of paying tribute to his fans, both in Italy and Japan, following the recent earthquake disaster.
“A greeting to all the Italians who will be celebrating the 150th year of Italy’s unification tomorrow: we know there are a lot of you supporting us, and although we probably won’t yet be at our best by Sunday, we’ll give it our best effort. I’m also thinking of everyone in Japan who is living through this very difficult moment. What happened is truly frightening, but Japan’s people are very strong and capable of reacting. We’re all behind you.”
