Rossi: from hero to zero

The Desmosedici and Valentino Rossi (pictured here with the legendary John Surtees) once again showed their Jekyll and Hyde character. Fastest of the field in the wet, and slowest of the prototypes in the dry. "It's incredible. Our strong points in the wet become our weaknesses in the dry, and vice versa. It's probably not a coincidence, but if you ask me the reason why, I couldn't tell you. Nicky and Barbera went well, though, so we need to wake up and get closer to them."

The Doctor also accepted his share of the blame: "I need to improve myself as well. There are three blind corners where you must brake and turn in by memory - the Ducati rider explained - If you get the line wrong, you lose a lot of time, also because they are fast corners. That's why the dry session was so useful; I'm still short on kilometers for this track. We are losing a lot of time on the exit of turn 9. You must accelerate very hard there, and I can't keep the front wheel on the ground. In that section alone I lose 6 tenths to Hayden in just 500 meters. But we know which direction to work in. During the Barcelona and Aragon tests we tried a new weight distribution, which was a setup created by Ducati after analyzing all our data. Nicky then made some further modifications, and tomorrow we will try them."

Despite the poor afternoon performance, Rossi tried to stay positive and keep his sense of humor. "Last year we were very slow here in the wet. Now I know we can be competitive if it rains. I like this circuit a lot. It's wide and very technical. The new asphalt improved the areas that needed it most, even if it's still not perfect. At the end we are just a little over two seconds from the leader, which is better than 2011," he said with a laugh.

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