Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi criticises reduction in winter testing period – MotoGP news
Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi has criticised the reduction in the winter testing period for a MotoGP season.
MotoGP rights holder Dorna Sports has reduced the number of test days to eight for the winter testing.
Rossi said that it hampers the potential of the manufacturer to properly develop its bike for the season. He added the factory has to test a lot of things, and the reduction in number of days will affect that.
Rossi said, “I think it is incredible that we don't have more tests because for me and Ducati it increases the time to recover by ten times. We have to try a lot of things, but it is not possible, so we are worse than the Italian championship.”
Except for the two test days following the Valencia race, the rest of the three pre-season outings were reduced to eight days. The two visits to Sepang International Circuit are of three days each and the final pre-season session is of two nights at Losail,
Qatar.
Ahead of the season opening round, the final pre-season test is held, which is not enough from Rossi’s point of view. Test days during the season have also been reduced to eight. The reduction in test days has been made in order to save costs amid the global
economic crisis.
While commenting on the test days in the season, Rossi has strongly rejected the idea of saving money and forcing the factory to lose its goal to develop a bike.
During the 2011 season, the restriction has hampered Ducati from developing its GP11.1. Since the season start, Ducati has been facing poor race finishes by the dominance of Honda and Yamaha.
Affected from the restriction, Rossi has suffered a lot in the season. In his recent home event at Misano, Rossi finished at seventh position but he was more than 27 seconds apart from the race winner Jorge Lorenzo. He claims that his condition is far worse
than it seems.
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