Ducati Team riders Nicky Hayden, Valentino Rossi suffer at Indianapolis Grand Prix – MotoGP news
Ducati Team riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi went through a hard race day at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.
The American rider held a good move from the start off. Hayden was riding in top four riders from the start of the race. Although he started the race from eighth position but his initial laps were best in the race. Unluckily he finished 14th after
a tyre change, collecting two points.
As he opted to ride with soft compound slicks, it cost him to lose pace in the race. He could not recover the lost ground later in the race, as he had to return to the pits for tyre change.
Hayden said, “It was a really tough day. We thought the soft front tyre could be a good option for the race, but unfortunately it only worked for seven or eight laps. Then I began to steadily lose ground until it even began shaking on the straightaways,
and I had to come in.”
In order to score some points, he returned to the track and completed his lap count. Hayden claimed that riding in the top squad was his first fight in the dry race conditions which he faced to be tough.
This was his first race in which he used the GP11.1. The new version of Desmosedici gave him confidence and pace. The new gearbox allowed increased speed on the straights and the corner exit was also better, especially the last corner at Indy.
Being since it was the first outing with GP11.1, it is a bit early to understand the demands of the machine. He hopes to get better out of it at Misano.
On the other side Italian veteran, Valentino Rossi was suffering from a bad start. He was 14th to start the race and kept on fighting until his gearbox spoiled his race. With the problem he slipped to last position in the race.
Rossi said, “A number of things happened this weekend that contributed to making this a particularly difficult race: the crash yesterday in qualifying, which robbed some confidence and was part of the reason we had to start so far back on the grid, and today
there was a problem with the gearbox.”
Rossi was annoyed with the issue but somehow he fought back and recovered to finish in tenth place.
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