Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi has said he is well aware of how fast his Desmosedici GP11 is in the wet after his performance at the Jerez MotoGP round but hopes to get in some dry track time at Estoril this weekend.
The Doctor, who controversially nerfed Casey Stoner off in Spain, has taken advantage of the three-week break to continue his physical recovery and now wants to spend the Portugal race and subsequent test to work more on his bike setup - providing it doesn't rain.
“With the postponement of the Japanese GP, we’ve had three weekends without a race, so I was able to ‘unplug’ for a while following the GP12 test at Jerez, although I continued training to help my physical recovery. Now we go to Estoril, a track I quite like, where we’ll continue working on the GP11’s setup, particularly during the test on Monday," said the Italian.
"The conditions are often unpredictable at Estoril because the area is very windy and close to the ocean, making for variable weather, especially in the spring. Anyway, although we saw at Jerez that we’re already competitive in the wet, we’re hoping for sun in Portugal so that we can make the most of our time on the track.
"We still have to understand the bike better, and to work on the setup with the goal of being faster in the dry in time for the most intense phase of the season, when we’ll have six races in eight weeks starting in June.”
