Nicky Hayden's shoulder is...
Nicky Hayden's shoulder is recovering well, but he's still questionable for the upcoming Sepang test later this month.
MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO, ITALY, JAN. 10 – Nicky Hayden’s hurting and Valentino Rossi’s healthy, and both are optimistic about the Desmosedici GP12, the phantom motorcycle that they’re infusing with unbridled faith in the hope of rebounding from a dismal 2011 season.
The information vacuum about the Ducati Desmosedici GP12, the machine that the Ducati Marlboro team hopes will restore them to competitiveness, and respectability, is vast. The bike is nowhere to be seen, not here and not in Bologna, at least not by the riders. Rossi saw a virtual version of the GP12 on a computer and was suitably impressed, but that’s a long way from the race track, which is where he and teammate Hayden suffered through a miserable 2011.
“I want to come back to last year, last season,” an Italian journalist asked Hayden near the start of his press conference at Wrooom 2012, the combined MotoGP/Formula One ski meeting/team intro held in the picturesque ski village of Madonna di Campiglio, high in the Italian Dolomites. Laughed Hayden, “We must?”
“Yeah, of course, last year was extremely difficult for me, the team, for a lot of people, because we set high expectations,” Hayden said in response to a question about why he was slower at many tacks in 2011 than in 2010. “Yeah, I think at times maybe I lost my way a bit on my side of the garage just because we tried so many options. The year before we were more close to the front, so we focused more clearly and just tried to make small steps. Where last year Casey (Stoner), the gap to the front was very big and I probably got lost trying too many options, too many different bikes to try to recover the gap. But it's only because me and Ducati, we wanted to get results, so probably it's true you can try too hard and got a little bit off track, but that's not the case every week.
“There was a lot of places I was a lot faster than the year before, so, yeah, there was a few tracks that, you know, you can always take into account for that. Sometimes the tracks get bumpier, lose grip year-to-year, but there was places I was a bit slower. But then again, let's not forget there was places that I was a lot faster than in 2010.”
Rossi has only seen the new...
Rossi has only seen the new GP12 in a virtual presentation on a computer, but he's not worried that it will be ready come Sepang at the end of this month.
Rossi had an injury-plagued and difficult 2010, but he still managed to win two races, one early and one late. In 2011 he had zero victories and podium, while continuing to recover in the early part of the season from surgery to correct the shoulder damage he did in a motocross crash early in 2010. The nine-time world champion admitted that he knew turning the Ducati Desmosedici into a winner was going to be difficult from the first time he rode it at the post-Valencia test in 2010.
Comparing Qatar 2011 to his 2004 Yamaha debut in Welkom, South Africa, in which he beat Max Biaggi in a thrilling battle, he said, “Last year was a lot worse, because from the first test we understand that the season will be very tough and difficult, so after three laps we understand that we cannot win the first race. And now the situation is better, especially because I'm fit and we know that we need the time, but we work well together. After, sure is a dream to try to win the first race, but in reality I think we are a bit too far. But maybe the new bike is a miracle,”he added, only half-jokingly.
The bike will need to be something of a miracle to keep pace with the Repsol Honda RC213V and the upgraded Yamaha YZR-M1. There were a lot of long faces in the Ducati garage at the 2011 post-Valencia test, the public unveiling of the GP12 with the perimeter frame built by FTR, the British frame specialists. Rossi finished the two-day test sixth fastest and 1.5 seconds behind Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, with Stoner a very close second.
“Well I think in 2011, Honda decided to win and they put on the table a budget and an amount of money that others did not have and they came out with a bike that was really incredible,” Rossi admitted. “I think that this technology is going to go also on the 1000cc bike, but I do hope that the Yamaha is going to be more competitive, but especially also us, of course, to have a more balanced championship. This is my desire.”
To get there Rossi, Hayden and Ducati must find a way to make the control Bridgestone tires work with the Ducati. Towards the end of last season he told Kevin Schwantz that the tires “scare” him, a quote he wished Schwantz didn’t make public, he joked.
“Well, first of all within MotoGP what is fundamental to go fast and be strong is to make the Bridgestone tires work well,” he said. “These are special tires. This is why we have suffered so much this past season. So together with Filippo (Preziosi) we have tried to think about a bike which could make these tires work as best as possible.
“I've seen it in only its virtual presentation but it's working well, so I'm not worried. I'm optimistic and I'm confident and I can't wait to try it. When I'll try it then I will better understand where we are, if we have been able to reshuffle the cards a bit. I don't expect, of course, the first test the bike is going to be perfect, but I'm sure that it's going to be enough to make us understand if we have worked well enough. This last season we changed the bike midway, halfway in the season. Well, this season let's say everything is going to be more planned out.”
He added, “Well, the bike changed quite a lot, I would say. Then, of course, we need some time and Ducati has made a major effort to have it ready for the first test, because the bike changed a lot. And, of course Filippo is going to explain to you what has changed on the bike.
“Right now, today, Filippo (Preziosi) has modified and designed a totally new bike trying to solve the problems that we had encountered during the last season. I know they have worked a lot within Ducati. I went to visit them. I've seen also the new bike on the computer. It's been very, very nice. We’re very curious to try it as soon as possible so as to understand how it's going to go and to see if we have been able to solve our problems and to shift the balance of the bike.”
One of the major problems with the GP 11 was that, because of the “frameless” chassis, the engine couldn’t be moved. The team spent much of the season trying to trick the motorcycle into thinking the engine had been moved, but nothing worked.
Hayden said the team has tried to “shorten up our development time, using also the GP 12 as soon as possible, because we had seen with the old bike we had some problems. Unfortunately, we had many problems also with the GP 12 and so we started to work to try to solve the problems that we encountered. At the end, this was a hybrid between the two bikes.”
In discussing the future motorcycle with Preziosi, Hayden said he didn’t have “any particular demand, but, you know, it's true we've isolated a bigger problem and we know we have a clear path we want to follow, so of course I've had some requests but it's not exactly just been one big thing I want to see different.”
Tuesday was Hayden’s first day free from wearing the sling that’s been holding his left arm in place since breaking his left shoulder blade in a dirt track crash on Dec. 27. He’s booked to leave Jan. 26 from his winter training base in Orange, California, for the first MotoGP test in Sepang on Jan. 31/Feb. 1-2. The decision on whether he’ll make the trip could be made late next week when he sees Dr. Arthur Ting for a follow-up visit. Having missed the post-Valencia test of the GP12, Hayden is anxious to give it a whirl, but knows there’s no point testing if he can’t provide insightful feedback.
“I’m quite better now,” Hayden said. “It’s been exactly two weeks today and now I can remove the sling. The first bit was a little bit of comfortable, because also I broke three ribs and ribs are never fun, but now I can take away the sling and start to do a little bit of rehab.
“The goal is to be able to ride in Malaysia, so it's going be a little bit close because the shoulder blade, I broke it quite bad and all the way through, but I don’t do an operation because it's not an easy bone to fix it with a lot of muscle and lot of soft tissue you have to cut up, but I'm feeling better now. The target is to try to be in Malaysia with a bit of strength and be able to ride, because I already missed one test in Valencia so I don't miss another one.”
Rossi, who was suffering through shoulder problems of his own at this time last year, is now physically fit.
“So, last year I struggled with the shoulder from the first part of the season and I think I was fixed around Barcelona, so already the second part of the season I was okay, but now I am also a lot better because I'm fit, I can train more, I have some less pain with the shoulder, so for ride the motorcycle I'm ready and I’m at 100%,” he said. But is Ducati?