Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi ends extensive two-day MotoGP test at Valencia – MotoGP news
Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi completed an extensive MotoGP test session at Valencia, Spain.
The last official outing for 2011 took place at Ricardo Tormo circuit that also hosted the season finale last weekend.
The Italian premier class rider has spent a tough session while testing his Ducati Desmosedici GP12. The machine was tested with a completely new aluminium frame.
Rossi said, “These were two important days of testing because we needed to collect a lot of data for the next few months of work, which will be crucial. The positives of this bike are certainly the engine, which I like, and the fact that it handles a bit
better than the previous one.”
The Italians’ teammate, Nicky Hayden missed the test session due to a wrist injury he sustained during the Valencia GP. He also underwent a surgery, following the injury. Ducati’s test rider, Franco Battaini tested GP12 as a substitute for Hayden.
The seven-time MotoGP world champion enjoyed the changes in the bike. The bike was able to deliver better power with improved traction. He feels it will be easy and fun to ride with the new frame.
Yet he feels that the frame needs a little more work to get more out of it. Rossi also added that the bike needs more traction during the acceleration.
He reckons that the bike needs to be improved under braking. Rossi has a style of braking late and harder while entering the corners. To support his riding characteristics he is willing to sort in such manner.
Ducati team director, Filippo Preziosi has many ideas for the coming season. He is willing to apply few of them just before the first preseason test due at Sepang, Malaysia.
Preziosi said, “We were lucky to have sun and generally much better conditions than what we had over the race weekend, and this allowed us to take full advantage of both test days. Unfortunately, Nicky wasn’t able to ride, but at least he’ll have plenty
of time to recover before the first test at Sepang next year.”
The team director revealed that, Rossi, Battaini and other test riders were asked to run test rides for a comparative testing between solutions.
Tags: