Nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi has been working hard with Ducati to develop the GP11.

Nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi is confident that developments carried out to his Ducati Desmosedici GP11 recently will have him pointed in the right direction when MotoGP continues at Le Mans this weekend in France.

Rossi has earned three victories, in 2002, 2005 and 2008, along with another four podiums at Le Mans in MotoGP, and he’s hoping for his best performance yet with Ducati after making inroads with the Italian manufacturer.

“Le Mans is a historic track, and I always like to go to these places with rich motorsport traditions, even if the stop-and-go layout is a little particular,” Rossi said. “The atmosphere is always really nice, with the grandstand filled with fans on both Saturday and Sunday.

“The track isn’t particularly technical but maintaining a good rhythm is tricky – there are many points where we brake really hard for corners, so then it’s important to have strong acceleration on the exit. We’ll see how well we’re able to deal with those characteristics.

“We’re coming off a test that confirmed that we’ve started to go in the right direction and, although we’re still in the first phase, we hope we can find a good setup for Le Mans so that we can be faster in the qualifying session.

“We’re all working hard, and we’re making progress, but we still have to keep improving.”

Rossi currently sits a solid fourth in the world championship entering Le Mans, the fourth round of the 2011 season.