I keep going back to the Autosport MotoGP site, http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72295, and re-reading the Gibernau comment that he is NOT returning to MotoGP "to try and win races". He didn't say the usual "maybe not win the championship this year", or similar. He said publicly (and presumably his Onde Ducati team can read) that he is not there to try and win races. Has he been struck by lightning yet? Does he still have a job? I know we all roll our eyes whenever a sports star or team trots out the old cliche "I came here to win", but it is really weird to hear someone say they're not even going to TRY!!!! Maybe his Catalan dialect translates badly. maybe he actually muttered "I won't try to win over Rossi's dead and broken body, at least in the first couple of races" -----?
Wow, that IS pretty strange that a racer would make a comment like that... AND STILL HAVE A JOB!! haha. I'd hope that the translation was butchered a bit which may explain some of it. I think what Gibernau may have been eluding to is that he is not going to start the season with the goal of winning races. As he mentions in the article, he needs to become familiar with the bike and the new technologies that have been developed since 2006. He needs to trust the bike to do things that he is used to doing himself. This is where he may have a huge problem. The old saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" would probably apply well here. I truly believe that the reason Stoner has had such different results with the same bike as Melandri and even Capirossi to an extent is not only that he is comfortable with the bike being 'out of shape', but also that he can trust the bike, and engineers. They tell him to open the throttle 100% at mid-corner and the bike will do the work, and he says OK! I don't think Gibernau will ever reach that point with the Ducati. He needs to be comfortable and have fun riding to go fast. I don't think he will ever be comfortable on that bike, therefore it will never be fun, therefore he'll never be fast. I am a big Gibernau fan, so I hope that I am proven wrong!
My take is he means that he doesn't expect to win races in the context of believing himself to be good enough to justify the ride and providing sponsor value. A professional journeyman in other words.
i am somewhat amazed he made it back. iy seems some sort of "something to prove" thing after getting dumped by miss big-lips canadas. i mean, how predictable is that, retire when you get married and declare a comeback when you get divorced? i am not sure if gibernau has much to offer. he may have brought some serious money (face it, he has always been rich, kind of in the old gentleman racer school) but other than that, he has a lot to prove, and will have to do better than any newcomer to prove his coming back wasn't just a mistake drive by nostalgia.
