Just as was the case yesterday, the second and final day of Valencia’s
post-race MotoGP test was blessed with ideal weather conditions.
Valentino Rossi was among the first riders to get on his bike after the
track was opened, and he worked tirelessly with his team and Filippo
Preziosi to carry out the tests requested by the engineers, who will
continue working on the 2012 project tomorrow in Bologna. Once again,
official test rider Franco Battaini substituted for Nicky Hayden, who
has an injured scaphoid in his right wrist, though the American stayed
at the track and followed the test from the Ducati Team garage. Hayden
will likely undergo a small operation in the coming days to speed up his
recovery. MotoGP concludes its 2011 season of racing and testing, and
will return to action with the first winter test, planned in Sepang,
Malaysia, from January 21 to February 2.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) 6th, 1:33.332 (62 laps)
“These
were two important days of testing because we needed to collect a lot of
data for the next few months of work, which will be crucial. The
positives of this bike are certainly the engine, which I like, and the
fact that it handles a bit better than the previous one. It’s definitely
more fun, in part because you can get sideways more. The frame isn’t
bad, but it needs work. We have to improve the braking, because I need
to brake harder and later, and we need to improve traction under
acceleration. Filippo has many ideas, and now we have a little time to
apply them before next year’s tests.”
Filippo Preziosi (Technical Director)
“We were lucky to have
sun and generally much better conditions than what we had over the race
weekend, and this allowed us to take full advantage of both test days.
Unfortunately, Nicky wasn’t able to ride, but at least he’ll have plenty
of time to recover before the first test at Sepang next year. We asked
Valentino, Franco (Battaini) and the other Ducati riders to carry out a
series of comparisons between different solutions, as there are still
chassis parameters that we have to define for the project we’re working
on. It has been really hard work, but we’ve collected a lot of
information that we’ll now use for the design that we’ll be doing in the
coming weeks.”
