Lapped Rossi ends Ducati era on a low

Valentino ended his two-year dalliance with the factory Ducati MotoGP team on a huge low, being lapped by runaway winner Dani Pedrosa and getting passed by James Ellison's CRT Aprilia.

Valentino ended his two-year dalliance with the factory Ducati MotoGP team on a huge low, being lapped by runaway winner Dani Pedrosa and getting passed by James Ellison's CRT Aprilia.

The Doctor joined most of the rest of the field and started the wet race on rain rubber but as it dried and he pitted in for slicks, he wasn't able to make the GP12 hold on to the narrow dry line and finished in 10th place.

“It’s really a shame that the last race with Ducati finished this way. Things went well this morning in the wet warm-up, and in similar conditions, it would have been possible to do a nice result. Instead, this half-and-half situation was truly difficult," said Rossi.

"In the end the right choice was to use the slick tyres, but my bike on the grid had a very different setting from the other one, so I didn’t feel like switching. With the rain tyres, I felt fine at first, but then when it was necessary to switch, the situation became more complicated. 

"There was a thin dry line, but I couldn’t put the bike where I wanted and as soon as I would go off that line, it was very risky. I could only try to finish. I would have liked to finish these two years with Ducati better. They were two difficult seasons, but I nonetheless leave behind many people that I enjoyed working with, and with whom it was nice to go racing.”

Get Thursday's issue of Bikesport News for pictures of Rossi testing the Yamaha M1. If it doesn't piss down, obviously...

By MotoGP desk

Image by www.SMARTFotos.co.uk