i don't think he is selfish, i just don't think he is acting like a past champion at this point. i don't mean the riding itself, i mean what is being reported, and yeah guess that could be a lot of neg. press
at honda he had a great bike, and was able... then yamaha he had a decent starting point and developed the bike... now, if he was that good why can't he... the bike excuse only goes so far. there has to be more to it. any decent rider can do well on a good bike. it takes a lot more to achieve the same results with a bad bike. it's really kinda early but for right now doesn't appear things will change.
you think duc is gonna keep paying him top $ with these results, maybe 1 more year at most. if the CRT teams start to be so close and hayden ends up placing better then what?
Rossi learned two important but disturbing things at that test: the first was that the Ducati was a much, much worse bike than he had expected. Stoner’s brilliance and the genius of his crew chief Cristian Gabbarini had flattered the machine, disguising its massive weakness. The second was that Casey Stoner had to be a much, much better rider than he thought if the Australian had managed to be competitive on the bike that had so shaken Rossi’s confidence.
The latest iteration of the GP12 – the bike completely redesigned from the ground up between the Valencia test in 2011 and Sepang in 2012 – does at least respond to setup changes in a way that previous Ducatis never have, but the core of the problem remains: a lack of feel from the front end, and a tendency to run wide in the corners. The bike is better, but it still has the fundamental flaws that the Desmosedici has had in every iteration since its inception. Despite all of the testing Rossi has done, despite all of the feedback he has given Ducati, real change is yet to come.
And so Valentino Rossi learned a second important but disturbing lesson: The state the Ducati was in when he inherited from Casey Stoner had nothing to do with the Australian’s development skills, and everything to do with Ducati’s attitude. Whether Stoner can develop a bike or not is unknown, for his input was either ignored or misinterpreted at Ducati. That was one of the reasons that Stoner himself had cited for leaving the factory. “I asked Ducati so often for changes,” Stoner told the press after he had joined HRC, “But we never got them. The bike we started the season on was what we had to work with all year.”
was as polite and as measured as all of his responses have been since joining the Italian marque – that Ducati had not given him the bike that he wanted, and that he simply could not be competitive on the machine he had to work with. His frustration was apparent, saying that he had considered pulling in, but had continued out of respect for his mechanics and crew. Hope had died in 2011, he said. “Ducati did not follow the direction I have tried to steer them in. I am not an engineer, and I cannot solve every problem.”
Here is the exact reason why rossi will NOT be leaving ducati
The chances of Rossi getting out of the contract without suffering major financial consequences are nonexistent. Not only would the Italian have to forfeit his salary for this year, but penalty clauses for damages would probably also put a sizable dent in Rossi’s personal fortune. An early exit would damage all three parties: Rossi, for giving up on the contract so early in the season; Ducati, for failing to give a proven champion a winning bike; and Marlboro, for backing a losing combination, and being associated with failure.
but then Speculation has been running rife since last week, and given that almost every rider in MotoGP is out of contract at the end of 2012, the possibilities seem endless.
