Despite Valentino Rossi getting the Ducati Desmosedici GP11.1 for the Italian GP at Mugello, the nine-time World Champion is still struggling with a 12th place qualifying position. Despite his troubles, Rossi is keeping true to his tradition of wearing a special AGV helmet at his home GP round. Featuring a giant eyeball on the top of the lid (Rossi’s bulldogs are featured on the back of the helmet), we can only imagine Rossi is paying with the fact that all eyes are on him this year as he tackles the new challenges that surround his move to Ducati Corse.

So far Rossi and Jeremy Burgess haven’t been able to tame the beast, and at Mugello, the famous crew chief is absent, having to attend to personal obligations back home in Australia this weekend. With QP cut-short by inclement weather, Rossi and Ducati had only a handful of laps to work on setting up the GP11.1 for Mugello, which could prove to be a hurdle come Sunday morning. Whatever the reasons are for Rossi’s design choice, he will be one to watch tomorrow to see if he can overcome the hurdles that are set out before him. More photos after the jump.

There’s no doubt that Valentino Rossi’s injury at Mugello not only left a hole at Fiat-Yamaha garage, but also created a noticeable void for MotoGP racing as a whole. Perhaps one of the greatest GP racers of all-time, Rossi rarely crashes, and has never been injured so extensively before in his career. And for all the parties involved this incident, it is an untimely disaster that has financial repercussions.

But as the old marketing maxim goes, any press is good press, and with all the coverage that’s surrounded Rossi’s crash, a sizeable amount of “buzz” and media attention has been garnered for the associated parties. What is all that media attention worth? According to internet market research firm eXtrapola, just over 8 million in US dollars (over €6.5 million).

Overshadowed by Rossi’s highside and subsequent injury, one thing we missed at Mugello (besides the Italian himself) was Rossi’s traditional custom helmet for the Italian GP. Always one to pander to the home crowd, Rossi has made it a tradition to have a special helmet designed for when he races at Italian tracks (with Mugello in particular), and this year was no different.

Valentino Rossi has had a horrific crash today during practice at the Italian GP at Mugello. Highsiding in Turn 13, Rossi has sustained a compound fracture to his right shin. He was flown by helicopter from the circuit to Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico in Florence where he underwent surgery on his leg. The surgery was successful in repairing the fractured bone, and Rossi is expected to be in the hospital for the next seven to ten days, and likely not to return to racing for at least six weeks. Video of the crash after the jump.

I don’t know what else to say…

Source: Fast Fever via Autoblog

How could we talk about the fastest man at Mugello, and not touch on the slowest man of Mugello? No we don’t mean Sete Gibernau who has had a remarkably unremarkable season. We mean the Luxors of Late Braking, the Princes of Passing, and the Bastards of Barging in, those rider who hold on for just a split second longer than the rest before grabbing a fistful of brake after a long straight away.

Well, he clever folk at Brembo did some analytic interpretations from the data-logging the teams used at Mugello, and have figured out who the best brakers were at the Italian circuit this weekend. Results after the jump.

Although Dani Pedrosa didn’t have the best weekend in Mugello, he did win the title of the fastest man to ever ride a MotoGP bike. The Jockey sized Spainard was clocked in the speed trap at a phenomenal 217.03mph, shattering the previous record set by Makoto Tamada by 4mph.

If you’re a close watcher of MotoGP, you may know that Dani Pedrosa suffered a bad crash in the second Free Practice session of the Mugello GP that severely injured the Spaniard’s hip. In the incident, Pedrosa was nearly flicked off his Repsol Honda, and landed poorly on the groun, causing a tearing of a tendon at the top of his thigh.

Pedrosa would go on to race in the Italian GP, but crashed out midway through. Fortunately, the second crash didn’t aggrivate his hip/thigh injury.

The Repsol Honda team has just issued a press release on Pedrosa’s condition. It is enclosed after the jump.