The current ducati is a dud, with inherent design flaws. The even bigger problem is that it is not clear exactly clear where the design flaws lie; I am still not convinced that it is carbon fibre per se, as the mostly carbon fibre 2009 bike was no bad thing, if only suited to stoner's idiosyncratic riding style. Both The gp 11 and its successors were mainly designed before rossi's and jb's advent and I think part of the problem is that they designed according to what they thought would suit rossi rather than even how they would normally design a bike, and hence it is hardly rossi's fault that they apparently guessed wrong. I think there was some hubris in the statements of both jb and rossi prior to going to ducati as mental anrchist has pointed out, but their failure so far to fix things imo now says more about ducati and their bike than rossi/jb.
To get my stoner fanboy thing in, on hayden's form so far this week-end we are gain seeing a statement of stoner's which was misinterpreted/criticised proven accurate; left to his own devices on the old(er) bike nicky seems to be doing quite well.
Yes I agree, Hayden is going well so far this weekend. But since the introduction of the GP11.1 Rossi is still the best placed Ducati in the race, leaving Stoner's comment a little high and dry.
I'm not saying that the GP11.1 is the answer to Ducati's woes at all, in fact its probably only a very marginal step forward when they need a leap, watching Rossi in FP you can't help but feel he isn't even close to being on it,
like what we've seen in the past on the Yamaha, the problems are obviously much larger than anyone predicted especially this far into the season.
Hayden looks good but its not like he's anywhere near the top step in FP, and has been well off the pace in the races, meaning that pursuing the GP11 seems pointless too.
Even the only man to succeed with the 800 Desmo Casey, couldn't make it consistently competitive last season, without the increased effort from Honda as we've seen this season.
The current crop of Riders seem to be constantly pissing on each other in the media, for which I don't care too much for.
Casey needs to focus on beating Jorge and Dani, maybe even Marco and Ben yet, a task of great difficulty this weekend.
Taking the journos bait on Ducati's woes when Rossi and Hayden clearly aren't a threat at present should be well beyond Stoner by now, and it may well bite him later.
Stoner has proven his talent on the Honda, and even moreso now raised a lot of eyebrows about his time on the Ducati.
I expect this rot from the Italians and Spanish, but I believe that Stoner would perform much better (if possible! and a scary prospect for the competition) by not getting into these situations
some of which he has unfortunately exacerbated recently.
