The Ducati Team riders are eager to push on at Round 2, the first European race of the 2011 MotoGP World Championship, which takes place this weekend.

Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden are more than ready to force the issue at this weekend’s Gran Premio bwin de España, as the Ducati Team duo prepare to kickstart their respective seasons at Jerez.

Rossi is the most successful rider of all time at the track having won six premier class races there, whilst Hayden has podium experience from his title-winning 2006 season, and after the opening round in Qatar both riders are aiming on improving on their finishes of seventh (Rossi) and ninth (Hayden) respectively.

“Qatar, with its many hard corner entries and areas where we brake to the right, was difficult for my shoulder. We’ll see if Jerez is a little easier from that point of view, although I think I’ll still have to grit my teeth for a while,” said Rossi. “Since Qatar, I’ve continued working out in the gym to try and increase my strength and especially my endurance, but after Spain I’ll have almost a month to recuperate more fully, following the postponement of the Japanese Grand Prix.”

He continued: “From a technical point of view, Jerez doesn’t seem to have been the most favourable track for Ducati, but I’ve always liked it a lot and we’ll definitely have to try and do better than we have until now. For the moment, we’ll continue working on the set-up, using everything we learned in Qatar, where we found some good solutions for the race.”


Hayden, who took his Desmosedici to a fourth-placed finish at the Andalucian track last year, said: “Jerez is a really unique race with a great track. It’s one of the highlights of the whole season, and because it’s the first European race, in some ways it almost feels like it’s the first race of the year all over again. It’s a track I’ve enjoyed in the past, and I definitely enjoy racing there.”

“Round 1 in Qatar obviously didn’t go how we’d hoped, pretty much from the start of the weekend, so we need to just try and learn from that and go into Jerez and hopefully come out a lot stronger on Friday. Hopefully we can get up closer to the sharp end and have a bit of fun. Jerez can be a really fun weekend if you’re in the mix. We don’t really have any miracle game plan or anything crazy. We’ll just go in there and try and get a good result.”