Rossi Regrets Ducati No Test Ride Policy

An Italian site Atuttonet is reporting that Valentino Rossi has admitted that he might not have signed with Marlboro Ducati if he had been able to ride the bike in advance as he discussed his travails on the troublesome machine this season.

If you haven’t been following MotoGP lately here is a quick update. 9 time World Champion Valentino Rossi switched from the title winning Yamaha M1 to join Ducati. Marriage made in heaven and all that, the greatest motorcycle racer of all time meets the most evocative manufacturer.

Just like he did when he switched from Honda to Yamaha, Rossi went out and won his first race finished 7th. Failed to meet expectations is probably the PR speak for the results. What might have been chalked up to teething problems has persisted all year long and Rossi has turned mediocre qualifying into middling race results, standing on the podium just once and never looking like winning a race (with the possible exception of wet Jerez where he crashed and took out Stoner and still managed 5th).

For the most part the team have managed to at least look upbeat externally whilst scrambling internally. First there was a new engine with a heavier crank. Next was the apparent masterstroke of effectively debuting an 800cc version of next years bike dubbed the GP11.1 but success has remained elusive. Rumors circulate that somebody has been commissioned to build an aluminum chassis for the bike. If that weren’t enough, all this R&D means that Rossi will likely have to start from the pit lane before the year is out since the 6 engines he is allowed are soon to hit their mileage limit. I guess if you’re finishing 10th it hardly matters.

There is something more galling than all of this though. And that it this. The rider he replaced, one Casey Stoner, is not only leading the championship by a mile on his Honda but was a race winner on the Ducati last season in addition to stepping up on the podium numerous times.

If Rossi is the greatest, fans and critics ask in one voice, why can’t he at least match the pace of Stoner on the red machine. Actually he kind of is. Stoner was prepared to push the Ducati to and beyond the outright limit and got the results that kind of behavior usually brings. Win or bust. At the same point in the season last year Stoner had amassed 130 points. Rossi? 124 even despite the Indy débâcle. Of course Stoner ran at the front or fell off. Rossi has been a most uncharacteristic steady as she goes collecting at least some points at every round. The tortoise and the kangaroo.

Rossi has said he admires Stoner’s accomplishments on the Ducati but respects the rider more than the man saying he is not happy with comments attributed to Stoner about Rossi’s supposed ‘dirty racing’ following their clash at the corkscrew at Laguna Seca in 2008 which rattled the Australian then and for a few rounds afterwards.

From this point in the season last year Stoner got it all together and won his first race of 2010 and then his second….crashed and then won again. Only the totally blind fanboys would predict a podium for Rossi at this weekends Misano MotoGP let alone a victory.

Perhaps this frustration led him to allegedly say ‘If I had tried the Ducati I do not know if I would have signed’. Lucky for Ducati Corse, there is no such thing as a Desmosedici open house test ride (although we’d be up for one).