Ducati Team's Nicky Hayden (Photo: Ducati Corse)

They have been through a whirlwind couple of years. The number of changes (especially in 2011) left even the riders confused at times about exactly what they were riding. Updates are great but updates that don’t help are not only pointless for the riders, they take time away from long-term engineering projects.

With testing limited, a team stuck a situation like this doesn’t really know what they have. With the engine rules in place, the teams are limited with updates to the power mills, too.

At the first Sepang test, Hayden and Dovizioso were ninth and tenth -- two seconds off the pace as the others brought out their new gear.

For now, the team will concentrate on detail changes to things like the geometry and center of gravity for the upcoming test in upcoming second Sepang test.

There have been rumors of a massive midseason update, one that might see some of Ducati’s long-held engineering principles like desmo valvetrains dropped. But that seems like more of the same, rushing to fix everything in one fell swoop.

In the last era, it was vitally important to find a miracle so that Rossi's two years on the Ducati wouldn’t be remembered as a failure. After all, he'd gone to Yamaha and created a legend; Rossi and those close to him 'fixed' the Yamaha in short order. Ducati tried but it didn’t work.

It’s probably best to use the data and feedback the four riders on factory Ducatis this year will give the team.

The phrase 'development year' has been bandied about and it’s true.

Gobmeier summed it up: “We are dealing here with a long-term project."

Ducati has created winners before and must find a way to do it again. Even if it takes a couple of years.