A seventh and ninth place in Qatar isn’t exactly where Valentino Rossi or Nicky Hayden expected to be, but the MotoGP circus is now gearing up for the second round of the season at Jerez de la Frontera.
The two riders will have to try break that tiny ‘curse’ that traditionally sees the Desmosedici not performing up to par, despite getting massive winter and parts testing by the Ducati test team at this track.
The last time that a Ducati rider got a podium at this particular Spanish circuit was Casey Stoner, with his third spot in 2009.
Rossi will be challenging not only his rivals, but also his ongoing shoulder condition and anxiously waiting for the long break (almost a month) after this weekend’s GP to get into better fitness, while waiting to see if the new parts that Filippo Preziosi will be bringing in for Estoril MotoGP test will make the GP11 easier to ride.
“Qatar, with its many hard corner entries and areas where we brake to the right, was difficult for my shoulder.
We’ll see if Jerez is a little easier from that point of view, although I think I’ll still have to grit my teeth for a while,” said the Italian.
“Since Qatar, I’ve continued working out in the gym to try and increase my strength and especially my endurance, but after Spain I’ll have almost a month to recuperate more fully, following the postponement of the Japanese Grand Prix.
From a technical point of view, Jerez doesn’t seem to have been the most favorable track for Ducati, but I’ve always liked it a lot and we’ll definitely have to try and do better than we have until now.
For the moment, we’ll continue working on the setup, using everything we learned in Qatar, where we found some good solutions for the race.
”And Nicky? He hopes to get into the mix, “Jerez is a really unique race with a great track.
It’s one of the highlights of the whole season, and because it’s the first European race, in some ways it almost feels like it’s the first race of the year all over again.
It’s a track I’ve enjoyed in the past, and I definitely enjoy racing there.
Round 1 in Qatar obviously didn’t go how we’d hoped, pretty much from the start of the weekend, so we need to just try and learn from that and go into Jerez and hopefully come out a lot stronger on Friday.
We’ll just go back at ‘em,that’s all I really know how to do.
Hopefully we can get up closer to the sharp end and have a bit of fun.
Jerez can be a really fun weekend if you’re in the mix.
We don’t really have any miracle game plan or anything crazy.
We’ll just go in there and try and get a good result.
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