Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden ready for first MotoGP event of 2011 season in Qatar – MotoGP news
The Marlboro Ducati duo Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden is ready to run at the first race of the 18-race 2011 MotoGP World Championship.
The four-day racing weekend starts with the practice session on Thursday for the Sunday’s race.
After running victorious seven seasons with Factory Yamaha Racing, Rossi will appear in action with Marlboro Ducati livery for the first time at the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar on Losail circuit. Rossi moved to Ducati after the shift of Casey
Stoner to Repsol Honda Team for 2011 season. The empty space left by Rossi at Factory Yamaha Racing was filled by the 2010 rookie from the Monster Yamaha Tech3 team.
After the last test session at Losail, Qatar, the preparation work has been started for season opener Grand Prix at the circuit. The MotoGP teams and the whole paddock are keeping a close update on the news of the Japanese disaster shook the country.
The MotoGP officials have also announced that the Grand Prix of Japan at Motegi circuit is been postponed third race to the fifteenth race on the MotoGP calendar, the new date was declared to be October 2, 2011.
This is the second consecutive year that the Japanese Grand Prix has been shifted from spring to October. Last year’s factor was a volcanic eruption at Iceland, which halted the European air traffic system. The whole MotoGP team is in sorry for the
Japanese devastation and the colleagues at the MotoGP paddock.
Rossi is presently lacking full fitness which has cost him crucial testing time during the three test sessions.
“For the first practice session in Qatar, we’ll start with the settings that we found on the last day of the test, because our final lap time notwithstanding, they weren’t bad. I’m also thinking of everyone in Japan who is living through this very
difficult moment. What happened is truly frightening, but Japan’s people are very strong and capable of reacting,” he said.
Thursday, March 17, 2011 is more important for the Italian Ducati team as the team will celebrate its 150th anniversary of the country’s unification. The redesigned fairings of the red-white striped Ducati Desmosedici GP11 rode by Valentino
Rossi and Nicky Hayden carry a specially designed official logo for this event, displaying three Italian flags representing the three jubilees of 1911, 1961, and 2011.
Nicky Hayden has been struggling well enough to improve his GP11 throughout the three pre-season test sessions.
“During the test, there were parts of the track where I was pretty fast, and a couple of long, fast corners where I was losing a pretty good chunk of time. Our focus will be to try and get the bike to steer a bit better through those spots. Everyone
is really tight on times and I think that’s pretty cool. I like how competitive it is and we know it’s going to be like that all season,” Hayden said.
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