Ducati News Today

Today’s event-filled qualifying session for the Portuguese Grand Prix in Estoril saw Ducati Team riders Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden working hard to find a setup for tomorrow’s race. 

Weather conditions were typically fickle for Estoril during the first day of practice at the Portuguese Grand Prix, with the first MotoGP free-practice session marked by a damp track, whereas the surface was mainly dry in the afternoon. Nonetheless, Ducati Team riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi were able to gather valuable information that should [...]

The Ducati Team has transferred to Portugal for the third round of the MotoGP World Championship, which will take place on Sunday at Circuito Estoril, a track that, despite being notable for having the slowest average speed on the Grand Prix calendar, also includes some very fast sections like Turn 5, which is taken at [...]

No one would argue that the debut of Valentino Rossi for Ducati in 2011 was a disappointment of intergalactic proportions.  Still Ducatisti, Ducati Corse, commentators and the MotoGP paddock itself did their best to keep a positive spin on things.  After all, for all the disappointment, the doctor was still the fastest Ducati racer on the [...]

The second round of the 2012 MotoGP World Championship was another disappointing one for Ducati fans, especially after the pace of Valentino Rossi in the wet practice and with Nicky Hayden qualifying on the front row.  There are only a few days before we get to see whether Portugal will bear any riper fruit. In [...]

The weekend’s last rain shower fell less than an hour before the Spanish Grand Prix, leaving time for the water to evaporate enough to have the race declared dry, so the MotoGP riders started on slick tyres. Nicky Hayden, who started from the first row, was involved in a back-and-forth battle for third place with [...]

The qualifying session for the MotoGP round in Jerez de la Frontera featured unpredictable weather conditions, as had been the case in all of the free-practice sessions. Nicky Hayden posted the third-best time on a mainly dry track, earning a spot on the front row with Lorenzo and Pedrosa. 

A jubilant Valentino Rossi set the second fastest time in the wet second practice session at Jerez today behind only Dani Pedrosa.  It seems that despite the aggressive power delivery of the Ducati GP12 the Ducati remains fast in the wet as it was last year.  Rossi will make his 200th premier class start in the race [...]

The Ducati Team travels to Spain this week for one of the most popular events on the world championship calendar, the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez de la Frontera. Last year’s rain-affected race saw Nicky Hayden climb the third step of the podium, while following a fall at the beginning of the eighth lap Valentino Rossi took [...]

Valentino Rossi did one better in finishing 9th in the Blancpain Endurance series in the Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia than he managed on the debut of his Ducati GP12 earlier this month in Losail, Qatar.  Rossi may have finished a lot higher if not for a tangle with a back-marker when his co-driver was [...]