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Valentino Rossi says he won’t be fit for MotoGP season start

Valentino Rossi admitted at the Wrooom event that his shoulder damage was more serious than originally thought, and that he won't be fully fit for the 2011 MotoGP season start on March 20MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO, ITALY, JAN 11 – Valentino Rossi admitted that he won’t be at peak fitness for the first race of the year, which means he’ll start his season on the Ducati Marlboro team facing an uphill battle against a retooled MotoGP grid.

With Casey Stoner showing immediate speed on the Repsol Honda and Jorge Lorenzo determined to defend his and Yamaha’s number one plate, to say nothing of Pedrosa, Spies, Hayden, Dovizioso, and Simoncelli, Rossi will be hard against it to get on the podium in the early going.

The Nov. 15 surgery to repair his injured right shoulder went well, he said, but his doctors discovered more damage than they’d originally thought, and his recovery time was adjusted. Rather than the initial 90 days, which would have put him in fighting form in the middle of February, the recovery period is going to be five or six months. “I hope to be in shape for March 20 and at 100% in, let’s say, April or May. That’s when I should be 100%.�

March 20 is the day every MotoGP fan has penciled in on his calendar. The traditional Qatar season-opener is where Rossi is to make his race debut, assuming there are no further medical setbacks. Rossi’s first win of the season came in last year’s Qatar curtain-raiser, but only after Stoner crashed the Ducati Marlboro Desmosedici GP10 with over a two second lead on the sixth of 22 laps. The crash was the first of many front end tumbles that would ultimately derails the seasons of both Stoner and Nicky Hayden, though Hayden made impressive progress from a disastrous first season with the team in 2009.




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