Valentino Rossi dedicates podium to Marco Simoncelli, while Nicky Hayden rides through pain barrier

Filippo Preziosi interviewed after seeing Valentino Rossi take second at Misano – and his best result for the Ducati in the dry – “Guys, this is a dream don’t wake me up! I asked Rossi to be gentler on the throttle because we had spin problems and we could have risked not finishing the race because of tire wear.

We have to work to the end to give Rossi the best bike possible.

Even Rossi couldn’t believe in his great start – he was second after the first turn – and kept the position for the entire race fending off the attentions of Stefan Bradl until the German rider started to fade.
Rossi’s second place finish was special not only because it is his home race, and close to his home town of Tavullia, but because the Misano circuit now is also named for the late Marco Simoncelli, who was a close friend, and Rossi believes that Marco from up there helped him to reach the podium Rossi was riding an updated GP12 with a new chassis and swingarm, but if we want to see something other than the very good result, we could say that it also helped that he tested at Misano two weeks before in the dry, so he had some data from the test, and it will be necessary to see if this breakthrough will also work on the Motorland Aragon circuit.

Tomorrow Rossi, Nicky Hayden, who still has to decide, and Andrea Iannone – Ducati’s future rider and Franco Battaini will be testing at Misano again, The test was initially organized for Hayden so he could test the new material that he didn’t use during the weekend due to his hand injury.
“It was a really nice race, and I’m very happy.
It’s a great result, which I’d like to dedicate to Sic and his family, Paolo, Rossella, and Martina,” said Valentino Rossi.
“I’d also like to thank all the guys who work with me and everyone at Ducati Corse who are giving their best, like me: after two difficult years, we really needed that.
I’m very pleased because we did a dry race at a high level, always with a fast pace, and with a limited gap to Lorenzo.
We worked well.
The new frame and swingarm allow us to make more changes to the geometry, and in fact here the feeling with the front was improved and the bike also seemed to be better balanced on acceleration.
The setup that we found was also good, as I managed to be fast and consistent for the whole race.
It will be important to continue working well and do our best to take the Ducati as high as possible in the next races as well.
”Nicky Hayden broke two bones of his hand during qualifying at Indianapolis a month ago and despite being declared fit, the American had to ride through the pain barrier to take 7th.
“I felt bad enough this morning that we considered not racing, but being here in Italy, I wanted to at least try.
This track seems to provide a lot of drama, and I thought if I could just stay clean and get to the finish, I might salvage somewhat of a result.
I knew it was going to be extremely difficult.
Unless you’ve ever used carbon brakes with a Bridgestone front tyre, you don’t realize how hard you can squeeze the lever on a MotoGP bike now, and a couple of laps, I had to slow down to try to let my hand recover.
It wasn’t very strong, and it was really painful, but I was able to hang on and get a seventh today.
Hopefully I can start building up for the rest of the season.
It’s great to see Vale on the podium, and it’s a well-deserved reward for all the effort by Filippo, his staff, the team, and the factory,” said Hayden.