Valentino Rossi deflated after Sepang test

Valentino Rossi struggled to hide his disappointment after he slipped to a bitterly disappointing 10th place on the timesheets at the conclusion of the second Sepang MotoGP test in Malaysia today.

The Italian ended the rain-hit three-day test with a best time of 2.01.550 that left him 1.077s adrift of red-hot 2012 title favourite Casey Stoner.

Although Rossi reduced the gap between himself and Aussie Stoner from the first Sepang test, the 33-year-old plummeted five places down the rankings having placed fifth last month.

The radical new GP12 that was Rossi was so positive about just a few weeks ago was far from flavour of the month in Malaysia.

The dreaded understeer that plagued Rossi throughout a disastrous 2011 returned, despite Ducati switching to a conventional twin spar aluminium frame for its new 1000cc contender.

A lack of corner speed and corner entry issues were an all too familiar tale and Rossi said the only positive was an improvement from a new traction control system that helped with a pumping issue from the opening test.

Rossi told MCN: “We have less disadvantage to the top from the first test but unfortunately a lot of other guys are faster than us. We are not happy for sure because apart from the electronics we tried to fix some other problem in acceleration but we are not able to do it.

“So we are behind and now we have to work to try and get better. Being just after the factory Hondas and Yamahas after the first test was positive. But everything we tried here – especially to fix our biggest problems – don’t work.

“We are closer to the first position but now in front of us are the Monster Yamahas and also all the Hondas so we are very worried.

“I’m too slow to enter the corner and I am not able to keep the right corner speed. I also have some movement in acceleration and I lose too much time. We are not far away but 0.6s in the pace is quite a lot.”

Rossi admitted the front-end issue isn’t as acute as last year’s problem that saw him suffer a record number of crashes in his MotoGP career.

He added: “I think we have improved because today I had two or three moments where that with last year’s bike I would have crashed. But it is not enough. The character of the bike from this point of view remains very similar.

“After the first test I was quite worried about my position in acceleration so we had some stuff to try here but we don’t fix nothing.”

For more from Rossi and Ducati in a seven-pages of exclusive coverage from Sepang, see the March 7 issue of MCN.