FEATURE
P56
VALENTINO ROSSI'S MOTOGP SEASON
Rossi on board the new Ducati at the Valencia
test after the final GP of the season.
"A lot of people thought the
Ducati was fast because Casey
was in front when he crashed,
maybe for some stupid mistake.
So people always thought Stoner was the problem. But it is not
true. The problem is the bike. It is
very difficult to ride, and Stoner is
very fast."
Natural optimism had enabled
him to push the initial feelings of
despair aside, in the belief that
he and his famed crew chief Jerry Burgess could solve the problems. But Valentino could only
54-60 Rossi Feature.indd 56
watch in dismay as Stoner on the
Honda proved beyond doubt that
Ducati's problem was definitely
the bike and not the rider.
Rossi's big move to Ducati was
just the latest sensation in his career. He spent two years each in
125 and 250cc GP, winning the
title then moving on. Second in
his first 500cc year on a Honda,
he won the last two-stroke title the
next year and the first four-stroke
title in 2002, on Honda's fine
new V-five. And again in 2003.
But the ambience in HRC's im-
personal engineering-oriented
organization left him feeling undervalued. Famously, he turned
his back on the big H to move to
underdog Yamaha. He wanted to
prove it was the rider that mattered, not the bike. A principle
that has now turned around to
bite him on the ankle.
His move to Yamaha could not
have been timed better: Masao
Furusawa had taken over, and
had devised the cross-plane
crank engine, transforming the
power delivery of the hitherto
12/9/11 2:30 PM
