The struggles of the Ducati Corse MotoGP squad have been many this year, as Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden have struggled to come to terms with a bike that has refused to give them the front-end feedback they need to charge into turns with the speed required by the 800cc generation MotoGP machines. Many expected Rossi to work his usual miracles and suddenly transform the Desmosedici GP11 into a consistently winning machine, but even with the best efforts of the Ducati Corse team, that goal has been elusive at best.
Because he is on his sixth...
Because he is on his sixth engine—plus the fact that his season isn't hanging in the balance—Rossi may start from pit lane with a new engine, his seventh.
The Ducati team has even taken the unprecedented step of publicly replacing the carbon frame concept that the Desomsedici has used since 2009 with a chassis configuration made from aluminum for Rossi, which the multi-time world champion is using at Aragon this weekend in an attempt to find an answer to the team’s chassis woes. After an initially promising test at Mugello using the 1000cc prototype engine that will be used in 2012, it was hoped that Rossi would see enough of improvement to show some progress this weekend. Unfortunately, while Hayden managed to qualify seventh quickest on the standard carbon-framed version, Rossi suffered a slow crash 20 minutes into qualifying that cost him some time, then was only to work up to a lowly 13th spot on the grid. Still, Rossi reported that he likes the feel of the aluminum frame, so the team will press on with that setup for the foreseeable future.
“Yeah, very bad,” said Rossi in a bit of an understatement describing his qualifying session. “Especially because we expect something better, because this morning with the race tire was not so bad. And also this afternoon with the race tire, I had a quite good pace, I was not very far (from the front). But unfortunately after I did a small crash, that I lose a lot of time and some feeling. Also, with the last soft tire, I was a bit faster but I did a small mistake, so we don’t deserve the 13th position. We can [do] better, and also for tomorrow we can do better, we hope.
“This track is difficult to understand because you use very much the rear in this type of track. But unfortunately the result is not fantastic, but the feeling is quite good, so we continue with the aluminum frame. Also is because is the first step for the future, is the way we want to follow for improve the bike.”
However, another problem facing the Ducati squad is that both Rossi and Hayden are on their six (and last permitted) engine for the season, with five race weekends still to go. While Hayden was confident he could make the engine last until the end of the season, Rossi was nonplussed regarding whether he would be faced with the prospect of starting from pit road as rules state for exceeding the six-engine rule.
“We will see, because tomorrow maybe we have to use the seventh engine. If we have to decide we have to start last from the pit (exit), it become also more difficult. But you know, 13th or last, pfft, doesn’t change a lot, so maybe is better to do tomorrow.”