Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi sweeps sixth position at 2011 US Grand Prix – MotoGP news
Ducati Team rider Valentine Rossi came sixth in the recently held US Grand Prix at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca circuit.
The Italian rider worked hard along with his team to test both versions of Desmosedici, the GP11 and GP11.1.
Rossi and Nicky Hayden tested their prioritised settings to the two Desmosedici GP models. Finally, Rossi raced with GP11.1 and his teammate Nicky Hayden raced with older version, GP11.
Rossi said, “We worked well this weekend. We started from a better position than we have in recent races, and I got a good launch on the start and tried to stay with the leaders. I did a lap in the mid-’22s, but then I closed the front twice in a row on
the bumps in Turn 5 and nearly crashed.”
The Italian rider was able to score a seventh position for the race start at Laguna Seca. He made a quick move from the start and tried to settle in with Andrea Dovizioso, Marco Simoncelli and Ben Spies.
After a few laps, he was left behind following the riders’ pack which included Dovizioso, Simoncelli and Spies. In the meanwhile, he was entangled with his teammate Nicky Hayden and was closing up on Alvaro Bautista.
Rossi said, “I still had a tough race after that, because Nicky stayed glued to me and didn’t give me a chance to breathe. We obviously don’t want to be fighting for sixth place, but we’re having some problems at the moment and we have to try and do our
best with what we have.”
The Italian veteran claimed that the bike is losing time in the corner entry section. He said the Desmosedici lacks feeling under braking for entering the corner. The Ducati team is working hard to sort out the issue and needs to focus even more for the
upcoming events.
He further said that improving the particular section will help move them ahead to challenge Dovizioso, Simoncelli and Spies who have the pace to be close to the top riders.
After the Californian event, the Ducati Team will head towards Brno, Czech Republic for the eleventh MotoGP round due to take place after a short summer break.
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