Much has been made of Rossi’s 7th place, and Hayden’s 9th place finishes in Qatar – but the Ducati duo are looking forward to round 2 this weekend at Jerez.

Jerez is a track that Rossi likes, but the Ducati has not gelled with the track in recent years.

Valentino Rossi:
“Qatar, with its many hard corner entries and areas where we brake to the right, was difficult for my shoulder. We’ll see if Jerez is a little easier from that point of view, although I think I’ll still have to grit my teeth for a while. Since Qatar, I’ve continued working out in the gym to try and increase my strength and especially my endurance, but after Spain I’ll have almost a month to recuperate more fully, following the postponement of the Japanese Grand Prix. From a technical point of view, Jerez doesn’t seem to have been the most favorable track for Ducati, but I’ve always liked it a lot and we’ll definitely have to try and do better than we have until now. For the moment, we’ll continue working on the setup, using everything we learned in Qatar, where we found some good solutions for the race.”

Nicky Hayden:
“Jerez is a really unique race with a great track. It’s one of the highlights of the whole season, and because it’s the first European race, in some ways it almost feels like it’s the first race of the year all over again. It’s a track I’ve enjoyed in the past, and I definitely enjoy racing there. Round 1 in Qatar obviously didn’t go how we’d hoped, pretty much from the start of the weekend, so we need to just try and learn from that and go into Jerez and hopefully come out a lot stronger on Friday. We’ll just go back at ‘em,that’s all I really know how to do. Hopefully we can get up closer to the sharp end and have a bit of fun. Jerez can be a really fun weekend if you’re in the mix. We don’t really have any miracle game plan or anything crazy. We’ll just go in there and try and get a good result.”

VITTORIANO GUARESCHI, Team Manager
“I can’t wait to get back to the track for the next race, and to continue working on the GP11 in order to give Vale and Nicky a bike that’s as competitive as possible. For a variety of reasons, we haven’t been able to take full advantage of the winter tests, but the Qatar race weekend allowed us to collect important data and information, and I think that the team did some great work on the setup. It’s true that at least with the 800s, Jerez hasn’t been particularly good to us, but both Valentino and Nicky like it a lot and we’ll go there ready to give our best.”

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