Rossi: I cannot understand this bike

MotoGP News
Date: 28/April/2012

Valentino Rossi’s hopes of quickly rebuilding his confidence with the 2012 Ducati, after a woeful opening round, evaporated in the sunshine of Saturday’s qualifying session at Jerez.

Rossi had been a fighting second fastest in Friday afternoon’s wet session, continuing last year’s curious trend of competitiveness in slippery conditions.

But on a dry track in qualifying Rossi sunk to 13th place, last of the manufacturer bikes and behind even the privateer ‘CRT’ Aprilia of Randy de Puniet. To run salt into his wounds, team-mate Nicky Hayden will start on the front row.

Rossi tenth place at the Qatar season opener, from twelfth on the grid, had prompted his first public salvo of criticism of Ducati.

Speaking after Jerez qualifying the seven time MotoGP champion, who has taken just one podium since leaving Yamaha at the end of 2010, avoided the kind of harsh comments he made to Italian TV at Losail, but the implications of his words was just as worrying.

Rossi, it seems, is close to admitting he will never be able to adapt to the Desmosedici, despite the huge changes made to the machine since his arrival.

Rossi, 33, said: "I cannot understand how to ride this bike. In the past, when I changed brands, I changed my riding style, but not by much. This time it was not enough.

“I’m very slow into the corners and it takes me too long to achieve maximum lean angle.

“All the tricks my crew [which moved with Rossi to Ducati] have learnt in the last 30 years do not work,” he added.

Rossi, who holds the all-time record for premier-class wins (79), was a massive 3.4sec from pole position.

"I think our real deficit is close to one second, but the only hope is that it will rain tomorrow,” he said.

Rossi rose from twelfth on the grid to third in wet conditions at last year’s Jerez race, before falling and bringing down rival Casey Stoner.