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| Rossi and the ill-fated GP11 |
By The Merchant
Ducati's 2011 MotoGP effort was hard to watch for any fan of the brand and in particular for fans of their factory riders, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. Honda sounded the alarm bells as early as the preseason testing in Malaysia, where their RC212V, a true weapon, dominated from the start. Rossi and Hayden were on their heels from the off and fielding questions about why their times were so far afield from Casey Stoner's. Rossi in particular had to answer questions about his performance on the GP11 when he finished the tests more than a second behind Stoner. The rest of the season is history but suffice it to say that watching Ducati scramble to provide the Italian legend a bike to carry him to the front was painful for any fan of MotoGP.
Time and time again, with desperation seeping from their pores, Ducati and Rossi couldn't answer the challenge from the Hondas and the seven-time world champion suffered the double humiliation of having his predecessor on the Ducati run away with the championship while revealing through his own poor performance that even his prodigious talents are limited. And now a man who five years ago could have gone to any manufacturer in the paddock and demanded his weight in gold is out of options. He's wedded to a mistress that seemed from afar a perfect fit.
When one door closes, another opens. At least that's the theory, but for Rossi the opposite proved true. When Stoner jumped to Honda, the door opened at Ducati and Rossi saw a way out of Yamaha and away from 2010 World Champion Jorge Lorenzo, a strong competitor and wannabe Rossi clone. But as the marriage to Ducati soured and his efforts with Jeremy Burgess to right ship bore no fruit, the doors around Rossi were beginning to close.
Three things happened to eliminate all options (other than retirement) for Rossi: The continued collapse of the world economy, the ascendance of brilliant young riders in his stead at Yamaha and Honda, and finally the move to the CRT format in MotoGP.
Rossi is a brilliant rider by anyone's standards. He is also an expensive rider-the most expensive rider by a huge margin. That means only a few factories/sponsors could afford his services in the best of times. With the economy continuing its decline even the established factories (Yamaha especially) are struggling to find the same sponsorship dollars available just a few years ago. Though Rossi can likely bring money with him to any team he chooses, which team could he actually choose? There are only three factories left in MotoGP and he's ridden for two of them and is currently with the third.
Even should Rossi desire a return to Yamaha or Honda in 2013 (assuming his 2012 campaign with Ducati is a failure), would they really need him back? In marketing terms he is a juggernaut but the factories want above all else to win. With Stoner and Pedrosa, Honda have their men. They would have had three contenders were it not for Marco Simoncelli's death in Malaysia. Yamaha has both Lorenzo and rising star Ben Spies on board and Rossi would be unlikely to rejoin a team with his hated rival. So it's Ducati or a privateer team, but even that would be impossible because each of the privateer teams seems headed for the CRT bandwagon, Aspar being first among the established teams to embrace the model over leasing factory Ducatis.
With Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta throwing all financial support behind the CRT teams, the future of the sport is up in the air. Rossi admitted during the recent Monza Rally that he didn't like the idea of the sport going entirely to CRT bikes but said to La Gazetta Dello Sport, "It's a little sad and it's clear what we must use less expensive bikes and if this is the only way I wouldn't have problems riding a CRT, although no one is excited by this."
It's clear though that Rossi would have problems riding a CRT. He needs to win, and soon, and a CRT team is never going to give him that chance unless all of the riders on the grid are on CRT bikes. He has to beat Casey Stoner in a head-to-head race in good weather for his time at Ducati to have been worth it. For better or for worse, he is stuck with the only remaining factory committed to his salary demands and in need of his talents.
