It poured at the Sachsenring on Saturday afternoon. It absolutely hosed down, rivulets of water running across the track to make the conditions treacherous. Ideal conditions for Ducati, you would say, given their form so far this year in the wet, with Valentino Rossi on the podium in the downpour at Le Mans, and a 1-2 during the first session of free practice at a drenched Silverstone. But Nicky Hayden is 7th and Valentino Rossi 9th, a second or more off the pace of polesitter Casey Stoner. What went wrong?
The answer, to put it succinctly, is the Sachsenring. The bike is leaned over for a lot of the time, and whereas the Ducati's strength is in getting drive out of corners in the wet - ironically one of their biggest problems in the dry - the lean angle prevents the bike from driving forward. "This track has a lot more lean angle," Nicky Hayden explained. "The strength of our bike in the rain is driving off corners, getting it picked up and driving off corners; this isn't really the case here." The rear was sliding too much, Hayden added. "I'm struggling a lot in the long corner to not have the rear come round. Especially on corner entry, there's some places I have to stop a little early and then actually open the throttle and lean it over to set the bike."
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