Kevin Schwantz surprised at Valentino Rossi’s Ducati struggle

Kevin Schwantz has spoken of his surprise that Valentino Rossi is struggling so much to master Ducati’s Desmosedici in 2011.

The 32-year-old arrives in California this weekend on the back of his worst result of the season in Germany last weekend, where Rossi could only muster a lowly ninth after qualifying second last.

The nine-times world champion has struggled to fix a long-standing front-end issue with the Ducati and he is expected to start practice tomorrow at Laguna Seca with two different bikes.

Rossi will continue to put in development miles on the GP11.1 he rode for the first time in Assen last month. But he will also revert back to riding the old GP11, which he initially discarded after a disastrous Silverstone round in mid-June.

Team-mate Nicky Hayden will employ the same strategy, but he has yet to make his debut on the new GP11.1, which has a different swingarm, rear suspension and chassis compared to the GP11 he’s ridden in the first nine races of the campaign.
Many people have been surprised to see Rossi struggle so much on the Ducati and he starts the second half of the season with only one podium finish under his belt in Le Mans.

And nobody has been more dismayed at Rossi’s poor results since quitting Yamaha than 1993 500cc world champion Schwantz.

The Texan told MCN: “I am surprised. I thought that as many different bikes as Valentino has ridden and done well on that he was going to immediately find a way to ride it. Maybe not all the way at the front but at least be consistently fighting for a top five and maybe getting on the podium a couple of times. It’s definitely been hard work and it is ironic to see him and Nicky as close together as they are. It feels that in the past there was always big gap to Casey and Nicky.

“Maybe Valentino realises it is not something he can fix right now and that the more he rides it and more development time then the better it will be. But to go out and push it hard for four of five laps and lead a race and then not know what to try the next weekend, I think he’s working at it with a lot more patience than I would have.”