Ducati hoping to improve at Assen

Ducati is hoping to improve their results at the Assen circuit this weekend. Valentino Rossi has said that he would like to have rain during the Dutch TT at Assen this weekend, because Ducati is not expecting to win a dry race. The former World Champion is now sixth in the Riders’ standings.

“Assen is a great track,” he says. “I like it a lot and it brings to mind a bunch of nice memories. We’ll try to start off with a good feeling with the track in order to improve our results a bit. For the moment, we can only work on the setup to prepare the bike as we try to return to the level that we had attained prior to Silverstone, which was a very difficult race.”

“We were a bit better at Barcelona and during the dry sessions at Le Mans, so we must at least regain that pace. If it should also happen to rain, we know that we can be more competitive.”

Also teammate Nicky Hayden is looking forward to the race just as much as Rossi. “Assen has changed a bit over the years, but it’s a track that I like. There are some nice, fast sections, like the last bit, coming back to the stadium. A couple of those corners with the banking are pretty fun.”

Hayden is aware that there is changeable weather in the Netherlands, but things the team is ready for the race. “Assen is one of those places where you never know what the weather’s going to be like, so you just have to be prepared for anything on Saturday. If you look at the result of my last race, I can’t say that it was really positive, but we learned a couple of things. One of those is that we need to try to come up with something to be easier on the tyre, so we don’t destroy it as quickly. We’ll work on that in the Netherlands and try to get a good result.”

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