Electrical Problems Plaque Rossi in Mugello
Both of Valentino Rossi’s Ducati GP11.1 machines were brought to a halt during the opening practice session today for the critical Italian MotoGP in Mugello. After a disappointing qualifying performance in Assen, the team would have been hoping for a significantly better outing in Italy at a track Vale knows well, has taken numerous MotoGP victories on and has recently tested the GP12.
It wasn’t to be. Rossi ended the first free practice session in 13th place (Nicky Hayden was 8th) after both his evolution Ducati GP11.1 machines were plagued by electrical issues as team manager Vito Guareschi explained:-
“The first issue was a short circuit, caused by a wire running too close to the exhaust; this was probably an assembly mistake. On the second bike we had a failure of one of the two processors for the ECU. This is incredibly rare and has never happened to us before. When I saw the second bike having problems I thought the worst. I thought it couldn’t have been another electronic problem, but luckily it was.”
To make matters worse, the second practice session was on a damp track with most riders electing to sit out the entire session. Only a few riders recorded a lap time but no-one went faster than their FP1 time even though the track was effectively fully dry as the checkered flag ended the session.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati Marlboro Team) 13th (1:50.780)
“It’s almost as if we didn’t have practice today. This morning we only had one complete outing, which went pretty well. Then we had problems with both of the bikes, and I was left with the time that I did on my fourth lap. They were really just minor problems, but the fact is that we didn’t ride anymore after the early minutes: on the first bike, a wire touched a hot part and the bike stopped. On the other bike, there was a separate electrical problem, and the result was the same. The afternoon session was halfway between wet and dry, so it was useless. Only in the final minutes were we able to do three laps to check some changes we had made, and the results seemed interesting. We hope we can try them more thoroughly tomorrow to see how competitive we are in normal conditions. Having tested the GP12 here gives us a starting point, but we still have to adapt the 800’s setup, as it requires different lines in order to maintain corner speed. Tomorrow we’ll continue to test, and we hope to get close to the others.”
Source: GPOne, Ducati Corse
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