Valentino Rossi’s MotoGP with Ducati this weekend in Qatar could be a difficult one if his final evening of testing is anything to judge by, the Italian again crashing the Desmosedici GP11 before ranking 13th overall.
Rossi went quicker than the opening night at Losail but dropped five positions on the time sheets, his best lap again over a second off the best of the man he replaced – Repsol Honda’s Aussie Casey Stoner.
“I’d say that today was pretty challenging,” Rossi reflected. “The weather conditions were much tougher than yesterday, and I had another crash when I slipped on a white line. Fortunately, I just fell over on the ground—it was nothing serious.”
Rossi says his troublesome shoulder is beginning to give him discomfort, admitting that he couldn’t push due to the injury in the closing stages of the test.
“The real problem was that at about an hour and a half from the finish, I started to lose strength in my shoulder, and I just couldn’t push anymore,” he admitted. “It’s a shame, because I had just done my best time, and I may have been able to drop it a little more from there.
“Instead, we didn’t even mount the two soft tyres that we had. I started on a long run, but I stopped because I was losing tenths lap after lap. Let’s say that we’re not as far back as it looks, although we still have a lot of work to do, regarding both the bike and myself.
“The shoulder is evidently not yet able to bear two such intense days of testing. Between now and Thursday, I’ll do some light exercise and have it massaged, and then we’ll see.”
Teammate Nicky Hayden remained in the top 10 and he was satisfied with that result, but also crashed toward the end of the night.
“We tried some different options and got a little bit better, but not like we really wanted to,” Hayden said. “I did two longer runs and was able to string together some laps at a decent pace, on both hard and soft tyres.
“I ended the day with a crash in Turn Two, where a lot of guys have gone down this week. I just lost the front end. Anyway, that’s enough testing, because this weekend it will really mean something.
“We know it’s going to be a tough one, because everyone is pushing so hard, but we’ll do our best to come in here and make a good showing.”