With no victories in 2011, Rossi looks to future

Team talk: Jeremy Burgess and Valentino Rossi at Phillip Island. Photo: Getty Images

A winless Ducati team hopes for better results.

FOR most of the past decade, Valentino Rossi has been the dominant figure in MotoGP racing, winning seven championships and charming the world.

Rossi transcends the sport, gaining a huge following and widespread recognition outside the traditional fan base.

However, as he prepares for this afternoon's Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island, the Italian faces a scenario that seemed unthinkable a year ago.

For the first time since his graduation to MotoGP in 2000, the most decorated two-wheeled warrior of his generation is unlikely to win a race this season.

Although his charisma remains, Rossi has struggled to adapt to the fearsome Ducati, which has defied his efforts to tame its waywardness.

In a move reminiscent of Michael Schumacher's shift from formula one world championship-winning Benetton to uncompetitive Ferrari in 1996, Rossi left the security of Yamaha to replace Australian Casey Stoner at Ducati.

Rossi was attracted by the challenge of transforming the Italian team's fortunes, just as Schumacher eventually did at Maranello.

But while Stoner's switch to Honda has brought him within reach of his second world title, which he could clinch at the Island today, ''The Doctor'' - as Rossi is nicknamed for his once-clinical approach to winning - has faltered. Winless this year, he has appeared on the podium only once and languishes in sixth place in the points standings.

The problem, according to his Australian crew chief, Jeremy Burgess, is that the razor's edge handling of the powerful Ducati Desmosedici GP11 is incompatible with Rossi's requirement to ''feel'' what the bike is doing as he leans it into a corner.

Burgess should know. Since 2000, first at Honda and then Yamaha, he has been the master mechanic behind Rossi's success.

Before tuning Rossi's bikes into prolific race and championship winners Burgess fettled the machines of Australian world champions Wayne Gardner (1987) and Mick Doohan, winner of five straight titles from 1994 to 1998.

Despite major changes to the set-up and construction of the Ducati, Burgess is resigned to a winless season. ''I think that's something you just have to deal with,'' he said. ''It'll be the first one for a long time without a win for me, too. It's different, but we move forward all the time.

''The transition hasn't been as easy as it was from Honda to Yamaha. I did expect, and I did say to people, that you would see the better from us in the later part of the season and now as we're getting to the very, very later part of the season, we haven't actually seen it.

''So, yes, I would have to agree to a point that we're a little further behind than would be ideal.''

Burgess is adamant the lack of results is down to the bike. ''I know that if we get the bike right and he has a couple of good races that we'll be OK. We just have to get the motorcycle to work in a better way and I feel we'll go forward very quickly.

''We're all focused on winning. We have hired the best rider. We now just have to put the machine in order.''

Burgess is convinced the Ducati team will return Rossi to title contention next year. ''Whether we achieve another world title or not remains to be seen.''