Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/103448
FEATURE P60 VALENTINO ROSSI'S MOTOGP SEASON in to the expediency. Although essentially similar to the carbonfiber unit, it was made of aluminum. It made no difference. He was 10th, equaling his worst finish of the year. By this stage, crew chief Burgess had long since openly admitted: "We wrote this season off a long time ago. We are just basically testing in practice, then doing a longer test with the other guys on Sunday." But the testing wasn't yielding results. Nor was the racing. It seemed Rossi's legendary luck just kept getting worse. He crashed out of the last four races: squeezed off on lap one at Motegi, and trying too hard in the rain in Australia. Then came the Malaysian catastrophe, when with Colin Edwards he ran over his close friend Marco Simoncelli, who was killed in the crash. His year ended at the first corner at Valencia, when he was one of three victims of an over-enthusiastic Alvaro Bautista. Two days later, he was testing Ducati's latest move in an increasingly desperate scenario: a total about-face in principle, with a conventional aluminum full chassis. So what had gone wrong? If only it was so easy to know! Rossi admitted in Australia that after almost a full year little progress had been made in resolving his main issues: front-end feel, and a riding position that gave him the confidence to "ride as I like. 54-60 Rossi Feature.indd 60 Will 2012 bring a smile back to Rossi's face? I don't have the feeling on the front, and also my position on the bike is not good. Unfortunately this problem remained after all our modifications. Maybe we didn't modify the right things." It was as close to an admission of failure as a rider's self-belief would allow, and his underlying principle remained as all year. "Hope never dies," he added. "I still believe I can come back to the top." Rossi's horrible year proves one thing. MotoGP racing is a very finely balanced science. Get one part of the formula wrong and it doesn't matter how good the rest it is. Perhaps this has changed since Rossi left Honda: the science and electronics has advanced so much that it really has become that hard for the rider to make a difference. There is a different way to look back over the year. Rossi and Burgess have in fact accomplished the most important step in guiding Ducati's development towards success. They've persuaded Preziosi to switch to a conventional chassis. This is at the cost of engineering progress. But Rossi is there for the racing not for the science. Results are more important than research. Rossi lost plenty in 2011. One thing he has never lost before in his racing career is his dignity. He won't want to be giving that away again in a hurry. CN 12/9/11 2:30 PM