Ducati's Valentino Rossi has vowed to not try and completely re-invent the Desmosedici GP12 this season and will contentrate on improving it, and his chances of winning a MotoGP race in 2012, step by step.
The Doctor finished the final pre-season tests just a second off the pace set by Casey Stoner but, more importantly, just six-tenths behind third-fastest man Dani Pedrosa and he says that although it is a big gap, his team now have a setup direction in which to work.
“We worked hard over the winter, and although we went the wrong direction at one point, we once again managed to find the good feeling with the GP12 that we’d had in the first test. With those settings, which we’ll start with in Qatar, I was able to get good feedback from the bike. At Losail it will be very important to work well during the sessions leading up to qualifying so that we can increase our confidence step by step as we approach Saturday, always trying to maximize our potential," said the Italian.
"I’m a realist, and I know well that our times are still a long way off and that there are still some things to fix. We won’t be able to address some of them right away, but it’s also true that both we at the track and the guys back home now have a direction to work in, and we must try to do as well as we can. We won’t completely redo the bike during the season, but we’ll try to progress little by little.”
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