The obvious point to make in the 2011 MotoGP Championship is that Ducati Corse is struggling to compete with Yamaha and Honda, despite having the G.O.A.T. himself, Valentino Rossi, riding for the Italian squad. The recent history of the Desmosedici is fraught with bullet points of issues, most of which coming back to the bike’s notoriously vague front-end. Though showing moments of promise, even brilliance, including a World Championship with Casey Stoner at the helm, the Ducati Desmosedici has earned the reputation as a career-ender and a confidence destroyer among its less fortunate pilots.

When the dream team of development came to Ducati, in the guise of Valentino Rossi and Jeremy Burgess et al, the talk before the 2011 season was that the nine-time World Champion and his perhaps even more impressive garage crew could have the Desmosedici figured out in no-time at all. With the now infamous quote from Burgess that the GP10 could be sorted out in about 20 seconds still resonating in the MotoGP paddock, we stand now well over half of the way through the current MotoGP season, and the Championship standings hide what’s been apparent from day one: the Desmoproblema requires more than a quick-fix.

The solution to fixing the Ducati Desmosedici can be broken down into three camps, and depending whose opinion you solicit, you’ll get one of the following causes for Ducati’s uncompetitive season: the motor, the chassis, or the rider. Walking us through that analysis is our good friend David Emmett (bookmark his site MotoMatters.com right now), who may not be the most astute automatic transmission driver we’ve ever seen, but when it comes to comprehensive MotoGP analysis, the man is second to none.

Putting together an exhaustive digest on the issues that are surrounding Valentino Rossi, Ducati Corse, and the Desmosedici, Emmett weighs and measures the different dynamics of the problem at hand. Head on over to MotoMatters with your beverage of choice in-hand, and hear what MotoGP’s most-enlightened journalist has to say on the biggest subject in MotoGP.

Photo: © 2011 Scott Jones Photography – All Rights Reserved

Australian Casey Stoner topped the time sheets today at Valencia, in MotoGP’s second and last test at the Spanish track for week. Although clearly adapting to the Honda RC212V quickly, Stoner was still unable to touch Jorge Lorenzo’s top testing time from yesterday, with the World Champion being five hundredths of a second faster than the Aussie. While Stoner and Lorenzo were busy dazzling the at the front of the time sheet, the majority everyone’s attention was trained on Valentino Rossi, who tested over a second and half behind Stoner, putting him nearly at the bottom of the scrap heap for the day.

While many Rossi fans were expecting the Italian to light up the Spanish track on his new Ducati, Rossi battled a front-end issue (different from the one Stoner experienced) that prevented him pushing the GP11 hard in the testing sessions. Testing only the Big Bang motor, and not the Screamer, it looks like Ducati will stick in that direction for the 2011 season, as Nicky Hayden tested both motors and preferred the Big Bang configuration. Valentino Rossi and Crew Chief Jeremy Burgess will likely be talking to Ducati the rest of the week about where the team should focus its resources in developing the GP11 further. Testing results after the jump.