Improvements felt by Hayden and Rossi

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The opening round of the 2012 MotoGP season continued this evening (Friday), with the second and third free practice sessions taking place at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit. Although the area was buffeted by fairly strong winds for much of the day, the surface grip improved compared to Thursday night’s dusty conditions, forcing the riders and their teams to adapt their set-ups accordingly.

Both Nicky Hayden, seventh at the end, and Valentino Rossi improved their performances, with the Italian in particular working with the hard tyre, consistently lowering his times with the race set-up. Only in the final exit did he mount a softer tyre, with which he posted the eighth-best time of the day.

Nicky Hayden:

"As the track is cleaning up, we’re getting more grip, but in a way that’s hurting us since I’m also getting more chatter. When that happens, I can’t keep my lean angle, and I run wide, especially in the flat corners. We tried some different springs but haven’t found the right solution yet. Chatter is so strange and inconsistent sometimes, but we’ll have a look at the data and do our best to sort it out. My pace isn’t great, but although I’m not thrilled with how the day went, the bike is certainly doing well on top speed, which is going to be important in the race."

Valentino Rossi:

"Today went pretty well, and I’d say that the last session was the best. The position is nothing fantastic, but on the positive side, I’m very consistent with the hard tyre. The front of the bike is giving more feedback, so I can push more, which is very important, and the bike is very fast at the end of the straight. The understeer is still there, but now I think we have a place from which to work. We hope to improve two or three small things with the setting for tomorrow, and we’ll try to qualify on the second row."

Ducati Team press release

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Hayden happy with FP1 as Rossi targets improvement

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The 2012 MotoGP™ World Championship kicked off this evening (Thursday) at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit, where the first free practice session of the new season took place under the lights.

On a dirty track surface, Ducati Team riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi spent the single 45 minute session working on finding a race set-up, as well as continuing to familiarise themselves with the still-new Desmosedici GP12. Toward the end, the American managed to post the third-fastest time of the session, while Rossi, who used just a single hard tyre, finished the night tenth quickest.

Tomorrow evening (Friday) will find the MotoGP riders participating in two more free practice sessions, with qualifying to take place on Saturday night and the first race of the year on Sunday evening.

Nicky Hayden:

"The first session went well. This track is a lot different than what we experienced in Jerez, more open and a lot wider. It was quite dirty and not very grippy, which helped us a bit. We started off on the hard tyre and then switched to the soft for the last exit, and I was able to do a nice lap. In general we were pretty fast and consistent, and I’ve certainly had worse sessions here, but we’ll just stay calm, keep trying to improve and try to get a good grid spot on Saturday night. It’s just one session, and there’s a long way to go. Sunday night is what counts, and it would be nice to get this team a result it deserves."

Valentino Rossi:

"It’s the first practice and I used the hard tyre the whole session, trying to do a lot of laps in order to understand it. The new tyre is much better for warming up, so good for safety, but it started to slide a lot after some laps and made some of the understeer worse. We have to work with the setting and also the electronics. The soft will be important for Saturday, but the hard will be the tyre for the race. Tomorrow we’ll try to do better."

Ducati Team press release

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Rossi and Hayden eager to get going

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The 2012 MotoGP™ World Championship starts on Thursday at Losail International Circuit, where it will be a long weekend. Riders will take to the track a day early and the race is held at night, as has been the custom at this venue, but those are not the only unique characteristics of the season-opening Grand Prix. This year is also marked by MotoGP’s return to the 1,000cc maximum-displacement limit and the debut of the CRT bikes.

During the three winter tests, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden started their work on the Ducati GP12, which debuted two months ago. While their focus during the Qatar practice sessions will be on preparing for the race, the two riders and their respective teams will also continue to work on finding their harmony with the new bike.

Valentino Rossi:

“We worked hard over the winter, and although we went the wrong direction at one point, we once again managed to find the good feeling with the GP12 that we’d had in the first test. With those settings, which we’ll start with in Qatar, I was able to get good feedback from the bike. At Losail it will be very important to work well during the sessions leading up to qualifying so that we can increase our confidence step by step as we approach Saturday, always trying to maximise our potential. I’m a realist, and I know well that our times are still a long way off and that there are still some things to fix. We won’t be able to address some of them right away, but it’s also true that both we at the track and the guys back home now have a direction to work in, and we must try to do as well as we can. We won’t completely re-do the bike during the season, but we’ll try to progress little by little.”

Nicky Hayden:

“This is my tenth season in MotoGP, and I’m looking forward to it. I have a really solid team and I think we have a good bike this year. With all the injuries from Valencia and my training incident, preparation obviously hasn’t gone exactly how you’d like it to, but Jerez was a good test for me to do a lot of laps at very close to 100 per cent. Qatar is pretty unique because we’re racing at night, but the truth is, after you get rolling, you don’t notice it by about the third of fourth corner. It really doesn’t change too much with things like lines and bike set-up, but as it gets later, you have to be careful with the condensation on the track, especially in Turn 2. I’d like to be going into the first race closer to the front, but hopefully we can do some steps. I’ve basically only ridden around by myself on this bike, so it will be nice to get in the race and really see how it stacks up against the others.”

Ducati Team press release

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Better final day for Rossi as Hayden looks to Qatar

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The final day of the three-day Test at the Spanish Jerez de la Frontera circuit officially closed out the pre-season, and the next stop for the MotoGP riders is the Qatar Grand Prix on April 8th.

The Ducati Team saw its riders, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden, finish the day in sixth and eighth positions, respectively. It was a result with which both could be satisfied in the context of the Desmosedici GP12’s development path, as the bike has now undergone seven days of testing, taking into account the days ‘lost’ to bad weather.

Valentino Rossi:

“Today went much better than Friday, and I’m pleased… we’re pleased. Unfortunately, we made some mistakes at Sepang 2 chasing a bad set-up, and we paid for that a bit on Friday because we started from that base. Then Saturday’s rain cost us an entire day, but today we finally worked well all day long. Step by step, we arrived at our current potential: I’m sixth, and I did a 1'39.7, which is a good time considering that we’ve only really ridden this bike for six or seven days. We changed the set-up, first the rear and then the front, and now I enter the corners pretty well again. I’m able to lean and I can ‘risk’ a bit more. Although we know very well that we still have a long road ahead, if we look at the gap to the front we can say we’re ready for the first race.”

Nicky Hayden:

“It’s been a very, very busy day. With my injury affecting the last Tests, we needed to squeeze a winter’s worth of testing into this weekend, and yesterday was basically a wash. Today we got to try some stuff on the bike and learned a few things. I’m not thrilled with my lap time because I thought I could go a bit quicker but I struggled a little with the fast corners. We’ve clearly got some work to do, but now it’s time to get ready for Qatar, and I look forward to starting the season. I definitely feel better after coming here and getting to ride at close to 100 per cent and getting to understand the bike a bit more. Now it’s time to see what we’ve got when we put the cards on the table.”

Ducati Team press release

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Mixed second-day findings for Ducati

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Nicky Hayden was satisfied to have tried out the Desmosedici GP12 in the wet at Jerez on Saturday, but Valentino Rossi was left disappointed at what he viewed as a lost day.

The second of three days at the Jerez MotoGP™ Test was significantly affected by changing weather conditions, with a light but steady rain falling on the Andalusian circuit all morning. Both riders took to the track at approximately 2:30 p.m. for a few exits with rain settings.

Only toward the end of the day did the asphalt dry enough to allow the use of slick tyres, with which Nicky Hayden, on his third-from-last lap, came very close to his best showing from yesterday, posting the fastest time of the day.

Valentino Rossi was among the riders who did not take a final run with dry tyres, and as a result, he did not improve upon the time that he had set in the rain in the early afternoon.

Nicky Hayden:

"It’s a shame about the weather because I’d like to take advantage of as much time as possible to work on the bike, since I lost so much time in the past few months. That’s how it was today though, and it does no good to complain, especially since I had the chance to try the GP12 in the rain for the first time, improving my feeling little by little. We took a long break when the track started to dry out, and we put on the slicks at the end, even though there were still some wet patches out there. I was able to do a couple exits to try the two little changes that we’d planned yesterday. Considering that the conditions weren’t perfect, it’s positive that we quickly come close to my best time from yesterday. Now we hope the weather will let us work well tomorrow, because we’d like to improve some details before Qatar, especially with traction in the fast corners."

Valentino Rossi:

"I’m sorry to have lost practically the entire day of testing, even if we still did three exits with wet tyres and a wet set-up, to confirm the feelings we had in similar conditions at the last test. Otherwise, there’s not much to say. We couldn’t work well today, but the forecast for tomorrow is better, so we hope to be able to continue working on the set-up that we identified at the end of the day yesterday."

Ducati Team press release

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Ducati aiming to close gap after first day

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Nicky Hayden was sixth fastest on day one at the MotoGP™ Test at Jerez but still targeting a smaller deficit to the top of the timesheet, whilst Valentino Rossi encountered a corner entry issue on the GP12.

The final winter MotoGP™ Test started this morning (Friday) with the first of three days of work at the Spanish circuit in Jerez de la Frontera. The weather was sunny with springtime temperatures until about two hours from the end, but it was also windy enough to affect all the riders. Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden worked on the Desmosedici GP12’s set-up, overseen by their respective crew chiefs and Technical Director Filippo Preziosi.

Nicky Hayden finished sixth and Valentino Rossi was ninth, but both riders hope to improve the set-up over the course of the next two days and to reduce the gap to the front.

Nicky Hayden:

“After missing the Test at Valencia and having to do damage control in Malaysia, where I wasn’t strong, especially at the first Test, it was nice to be able to get back on the bike today and feel close to 100 per cent physically. I felt good here and I was able to ride all day and finish sixth, which isn’t bad even if the gap is obviously still too big. We got off to a nice start, but we didn’t improve enough, while the guys ahead of us continued to make progress. It’s a little frustrating, although we gathered a lot of data by being able to ride all day without trying a million different things, and we have some good ideas for tomorrow. Of course our goal is to get closer to the leaders, especially with the lap time.”

Valentino Rossi:

“We solved some things today, but not one important thing, which is corner entry, especially in the fastest part of the turn. I’m not able to be incisive there, and it’s where most of our gap comes from. I can’t load the front enough to enter fast, so I don’t carry enough speed through the corner, and that’s why we’re far from the front. We found a more promising setting toward the end and I was able to repeat my fast time with a tyre that was very used, but it was already 5:30pm and the temperature had dropped, so we decided to start working on it again tomorrow because we think there’s a margin. Nicky went better today, and we also have to reduce the gap.”

Ducati Team press release

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picture: Nicky Hayden Face Expression at Jerez

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Nicky Hayden expression, Jerez

source: crash.net

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Nicky Hayden: “I believe in myself and Ducati”

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Nicky Hayden believes Ducati’s GP12 will be competitive to help the American and team-mate Valentino Rossi become consistent podium contenders in the 2012 MotoGP world championship.

Ducati is looking to bounce back from a disastrous 2011 campaign that saw Hayden and Rossi collect just one rostrum apiece on the GP11 Desmosedici.

Hayden and Rossi officially unveiled the new GP12 contender during an internet launch on Facebook yesterday (Monday) ahead of this weekend’s final MotoGP pre-season test at the Jerez circuit in Spain.

And Hayden told MCN prior to the launch that he trusts Ducati has got it right with the new bike, which features a conventional twin spar aluminium frame and revised engine position to help solve a persistent vague front-end feeling that was such a hindrance in 2011.

Hayden told MCN: “Obviously it is going to be a big year for me. I need to come out strong and have a good year and hopefully not be talking about it too much in November sitting on my couch. I believe in myself and I believe in Ducati a lot.

"I think Filippo (Preziosi) is a genius and I got a good team around me.  They did a double season last year and it felt like they were completely changing the bike almost everyday. So I’m looking forward to having a strong season.”

The 30-year-old is one of several riders out of contract in 2012, including Rossi, reigning world champion Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies.

source: MCN

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video: Ducati Desmosedici GP12 unveiled - Beauty video

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Ducati Desmosedici GP12 unveiled video


source: youtube

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Desmosedici GP 12 Technical Specification

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The Desmosedici GP 12 was launched yesterday. Here's the full technical specification of GP12 for Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. You can see the picture here

source: Motomatters

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video: The Making of Ducati Desmosedici GP12

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video the Making of Ducati Desmosedici GP12



source: Youtube

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pictures: Ducati Desmosedici 2012 Presentation

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pictures of Desmosedici 2012 presentation, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden.

source: MotoGP Official

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pictures: Valentino Rossi 2012 Desmosedici Livery

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pictures: Valentino Rossi 2012 Desmosedici Livery

source: twitter

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