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A visit from Rupert Stadler, chairman of Audi AG, which recently took over Ducati, lifted the spirits of Valentino Rossi after a hard-fought race at the Sachsenring.

The Sachsenring race proved tough for Valentino Rossi and 6th position might still be far below the Doctor's usual standards, but apart from a slight improvement in overall performance, the Italian had some good reasons to remain optimistic.

In Germany, Rossi got the chance to meet Rupert Stadler, chairman of the Audi AG board, to discuss the German carmaker’s plans to back the Ducati Team after buying the Italian manufacturer as announced in April.

In an interview with MotoGP Italian broadcaster RTI, the Ducati team rider explained: "I spoke directly with the boss of Audi and they have a strong intent about supporting Ducati in the future to regain its competitive edge. It's a very ambitious project and I'm happy about it."

"And they're counting on me" added Rossi when prompted about how his own future fitted with those plans, hinting at the idea of taking his association with Ducati beyond the 2012 season.

Rossi also stated that Ducati doesn't need to scrap its current MotoGP project and build a brand new bike in order to be back at the front of the MotoGP pack: "It's much more clever to try and improve gradually the bike we have at the moment, because starting from scratch would mean spending too much time on setting up a new machine. We have to focus on the positives of our bike and improve on the negatives: me and my crew gave some clear indications over the past few months and we need to work in this direction."

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