No Honda for Rossi. Only Ducati
Italian jokes that his new "manager" Melandri knows about his decisions
THE rumours of a move back to Honda were just that as Valentino Rossi laughed at the suggestions and announced his continuation with Ducati for 2012.
"I read about something from my new manager, the Superbike rider Marco Melandri, who knows everything about my decision for next year!" joked Rossi, in response to the comment made by Melandri that his compatriot is seeking a private Honda in wake of the results with the Desmosedici.
"Joking aside, I will race for Ducati next year for sure. It is not in doubt. The contract is signed and the situation is 100 percent fixed. So for sure I will race with Ducati - if Melandri agrees!"
As the MotoGP calendar is now at Brno, the nine-time champion returns to the location of his first win in 1996 on a 125, and the fabled start of taking a victory every year since then. The Italian commented: “It’s already 15 years since the first win, which was here, so great memories!”
Looking ahead to this weekend, he continued: “Jeremy came back at Laguna Seca, we missed him a lot in Mugello and Sachsenring, and we decided to continue with this bike (the Ducati Desmosedici GP 11.1). We expect more improvements compared to the old one, but we have to work hard, Ducati are working hard to improve all the areas we are having problems in. Fortunately on Monday we have a test, so we hope for good weather and we have a lot of work to do.”
“Laguna was a better weekend for me and my team, I started from the third row and had a normal race for what is our potential at the moment,” he added. “It looks like we are not so slow at the end of the race on used tyres, we are slow at the beginning so we need to raise our potential and work on that for qualifying.” Rossi concluded.
