Has Valentino Rossi agreed to ride for Ducati for 2011? The injured world champion was widely reported to have handed Yamaha an ultimatum the night before his big crash at Mugello—this team is not big enough for Lorenzo and I—and now rumors, and they are only rumors, have it that he has agreed to terms with Ducati for a two-year deal.
Casey Stoner leaving Ducati for Honda's Repsol team is being accepted as fact, and his crew, too, are reportedly being headhunted by the Honda team as well.
Rossi's potential Ducati deal is being helped along, allegedly, by sponsor Marlboro which is said to be dangling an offer for Rossi to ride for the Ducati team and have several outings in the Marlboro Ferrari F1 car, even though current rules do not allow Ferrari to run a third car.
They've kept a very positive public face on their relationship, but behind closed doors Rossi and Lorenzo have, at best, a very tepid working relationship. That said, the atmosphere of a race team and accompanying high stakes means that teammates rarely become truly friendly. Former Ducati race boss Eraldo Ferracci put it best, after seeing one of his riders chatting with a rival rider. He chastised him, saying, "The only reason you should be over there is to try and (have sex with) his girlfriend."
Rossi (31) has only worked with one crewchief for the entirety of his 500/MotoGP career and that man, Jeremy Burgess, said recently on Australian television that he will follow "his rider" wherever he goes, including, presumably, Ducati.
In his book "What If I Hadn't Tried It" Rossi wrote that when he left Honda he was courted by both Ducati and Yamaha, but he found the atmosphere at Ducati's MotoGP program to be more like the Honda one he was leaving, where engineers are king and riders are tools, inferring that Ducati is purely an engineering firm and not as "rider friendly" as he would have liked. Has that changed since Rossi last spoke to Ducati?
In a December 2009 interview, current Ducati MotoGP rider Nick Hayden was asked how much influence he had on the 2010 Ducati MotoGP bike's development. He replied "I'm not sure how much input I had."
