MotoGP: Rossi Crash in FP Upsets Shoulder

MotoGP Free Practice

Heading into Sachsenring, Valentino Rossi was already lacking his number-one man, his Ducati Team Crew Chief Jeremy Burgess.

Then other factors came into harmful play on the opening day (Friday) – the Italian crashed in the first Free Practice session, landing hard on his shoulder he recently had surgery on. Following the crash, Rossi was transported to the track’s mobile clinic, where he was treated for a "deep abrasion on his right arm and a blow to his chin."

Rossi was deemed OK, and began the second practice session for the Germany MotoGP aboard the bike he smashed, but a small pebble from the crash was lodged into something on the bike that caused electrical problems. This forced Rossi onto his second Ducati GP11.1 prototype.

These problems now compound the work of Valentino Rossi and the Ducati team as they struggle to find a correct front-end setup for the Ducati GP11.1.

Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team GP11.1 MotoGP) says: "This morning’s crash caused a hole in my right arm that looks like a little anatomy lesson because you can see ‘inside’ as far as the muscle, but I also took a hit on my shoulder-the right one, which was operated on, and which now hurts a little. It’s nothing too bad, and I wasn’t really affected much today.

"Let’s hope that’s also true for tomorrow, especially the shoulder. We did lose some time for working on the bike’s setup, also because I got stranded in the second session. It wasn’t due to technical troubles but rather to a small bit of debris that was stuck, causing a precautionary engine shutdown.

"I think that tomorrow we’ll be able to improve because we’re working on a setting that’s halfway between the Mugello one and the standard one, and we think it will be good for this track. At the moment we’re losing a lot of time in some sections because although the rear of the GP11.1 is much more stable under acceleration, which is important, we still haven’t found a good balance with the front. If we manage to find a compromise, I’ll be able to do much better."

VR46 will be back on track Saturday for the third and final practice session before qualifying.

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