Flashback: Valentino Rossi joins Ducati – MotoGP special
Valentino Rossi of Yamaha Factory Racing decided to join Ducati in 2010. This news had a significant impact as Rossi had convinced his strength over the Yamaha bike and it was expected that he will produce same results with Ducati as well.
His crew had assured him that they will be able to find improvements with his bike by modifications and earlier Casey Stoner had won championship with the same Ducati bike in 2007 season.
The news that Rossi will not be continuing with Yamaha was not surprising because it was reported that there were some problems between the two veteran riders, Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. It was floated in air that Lorenzo was being given importance over the
seven times champion and this was creating clashed between Rossi and the team.
We anticipated that as MotoGP is a sport of speed therefore Rossi will be able to give convincing performance with his new Ducati, but it did not happen. In 2011, he was only able to attain 1 podium with his Ducati in comparison to his 10 podiums with Yamaha
in the 2010 season.
The decision to join Ducati was a huge blow for Rossi in terms of championship because when he was with Yamaha he was competitive and was fighting for the top positions on the other hand when he joined Ducati he was fighting among the top 10 positions. He
was unable to finish the last three races in 2011, which included Japanese Grand Prix, Australian Grand Prix and Valencia Grand Prix.
The only podium he attained was at the France Grand Prix when he managed to finish at the third position. He had started that race at the 9th grid and completed the race with a gap of 14.564 seconds with the winner of the race Casey Stoner of Repsol. Another
interesting thing about this race was that Rossi edged his old teammate Jorge Lorenzo as he was only able to finish the race at fourth position with a gap of 21.075 seconds.
There are ups and downs in careers of sportsman and public figures however we anticipate that his move to Ducati was a wrong decision and we also expect that his way back to Yamaha in the next 2013 season would not be something which makes him suffer. The
decision has already received both positive and negative responses but Rossi believes that he wants a competitive bike at this time of career rather than trying to develop a competitive bike. Let’s see how he performs with his ‘new’ Yamaha machine.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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