Almost two-seconds from the top
“The position is bad, because we are just eleventh, but especially the distance from first. We are quite worried” – Valentino Rossi.
Valentino Rossi couldn’t hide his disappointment at finishing the second Sepang MotoGP test in eleventh place, almost two-seconds from the top.
After feeling ‘quite confident’ following Tuesday’s opening day, when he was ninth (on hard tyres) and one-second from the front, Rossi was then forced to miss the entire second day due to fever.
The seven time MotoGP world champion returned today eager to try and make up for lost time – and rode for 59 laps in the exhausting Malaysian heat. But there was to be little reward.
Rossi struggled with cornering and lost a further 0.8sec relative to fastest man Casey Stoner. There are now just two more days of testing, at Qatar, before his first race as a Ducati rider.
“The first day was not so bad, because I was already on the lap time of the first test [earlier this month] and we were one-second from the top,” said Rossi.
“We were quite confident for day two because we had a lot of things to try, like a different setting for the rear, some swingarm link, different suspension.
“I was quite optimistic to improve our lap time, then unfortunately yesterday I could not ride so we lost one day and that made things more difficult.
“Anyway today I felt okay. I made nearly 60 laps and worked a lot on the bike, but unfortunately we didn’t fix our problem.
“We are not fast enough in the corners. We have a problem for turning the bike, so I always have to slow down too much to make the good line. I cannot ride the Desmosedici in the right way.
“The position is bad, because we are just eleventh, but especially the distance from first. We are quite worried. We have to try to work to improve our performance.
“Missing one day was a disadvantage, but it is not just that. I mean we can make the bike a little better, but anyway the distance from the Hondas is big.”
Crash.net then asked Rossi if he thinks he will need new parts to fix the problems, or if they be solved through set-up.
“I think it is more set-up, also because now we are just 20 days from the first race and we work with this material. We are happy about the material, we just need to understand the setting and the way to ride this bike,” he replied.
The Qatar test, the third and final 2011 pre-season track action, takes place in mid-March, just before the season-opening night race at the same Losail circuit.
“This track is not fantastic for our bike,” said Rossi. “Usually the Ducati is very strong at Qatar, so we have to work at another track to understand our potential.”
Rossi, who had expected to be around sixth position at this test, set exactly the same lap time as team-mate Con Thursday.
But while Rossi struggled with cornering, Hayden’s problems were more general.
“It’s been tough. I can’t sugar-coat it. We didn’t want to leave two-seconds off the pace after six days here,” said Hayden. “We just didn’t make the step forward that you would expect in these last three days.
“It’s not because of any major problem, but a combination of little details.”
Aspar’s Hector Barbera was the top Desmosedici rider on Thursday, in tenth place and 1.681sec from Stoner.
source: crash.net