Pretty well everyone including me hopes that valentino is on a competitive bike this year. I took no joy in seeing him trundling around in 6th or 7th on the ducati 800, which is in no way a reflection of his talent, other than it putting into perspective, obviously not successfully in mcknez's case, stoner's performance on the thing. He wonders why stoner's attitude is truculent at times.
Valentino on a competitive bike would obviously make things very interesting. I tend to think stoner has more raw speed than him regardless of anything else at this stage in their respective careers, but rossi's strategic and tactical ability could come to the fore again, and one of his major talents over his career, that of tyre management , might become important again if the control tyre is much softer this year as would not seem unlikely.
Like barry if ducati change to a narrower angle V, I can perhaps take "credit" if stoner is nobbled by not having a sufficiently hard tyre available, since I suggested last year this might be a way of stopping him
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