Ducati rider Valentino Rossi struggling for form in 2011 MotoGP season – MotoGP news
The several-time world champion Valentino Rossi of the Ducati team has lost his pace and peak performance level after his injuries from the 2011 season.
Rossi is expected to have a tough time this season for a World Championship title as he has been at the top in MotoGP world for 12 years, said Mike Doohan, five-time world champion in premier class.
Valentino Rossi has won seven MotoGP World titles, especially five times in a row from 2001 and stands one title down in count from his compatriot Giacomo Agostini in the list of most successful rated riders of the premier class of two-wheels racing.
The 32-year-old Italian moved to Ducati from Yamaha this season. Rossi has not claimed any victory yet but came to finish at seventh place in the first round of the 2011 season at the Losail circuit, Qatar and fifth at second round, Grande Premio bwin
de Espana at the Jerez circuit.
Although he slipped and swept the race leader Casey Stoner of Repsol Honda with him, but after a poor restart he managed a fine finish in wet track conditions, whereas Stoner was not able to restart.
“He's a great rider and there's no other way of saying it,” Australian Doohan said. “But I think it's going to be tough for him -- he's no spring chicken in motor racing terms. I think in any sport, you've only really got a decade to totally immerse
yourself in the top of a sport.”
Doohan also explained that Rossi being in his 12th season makes it more of a hard struggle to hit back for title, especially when a rider has tasted that spectacular world of success. Doohan also added that it does not sound like the end
of his career, but it is not going to be an easy task to maintain as it not any more of a down step in his career, but the present state shows that he is already at the bottom of it.
Doohan was also victimised by a crash at Spanish Grand Prix in 1999, when his career headed towards an end. He won his all five premier class titles with Honda, and then Rossi won three more for Honda and moved into Yamaha for 2004 MotoGP season.
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