Ducati Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Ducati Corse)

According to the Spanish website, Motocuatro.com, and in a story signed by Germán Garcia Casanova, the backstage stories are brought together in a very credible way.

Germán has his sources, all talking under condition of anonymity, some of them perhaps trying to spin the narrative favorably for Rossi, but the majority hand-wringingly sincere.

Here is the story as Germán tells it: Rossi has decided that this season is hopeless, that the Ducati is going nowhere and that he wants out. He wants to negotiate a way out of the Philip Morris deal.

If he can manage this, he will sit out the remainder of the season and either join Tech3 Yamaha next year or lease his own Yamahas and run his own team.

All of this can be read either as news from an anonymous source or as mere speculation in several other Latin stories from Italy and Spain, but the Motocuatro.com story adds one unique element in a very significant final paragraph:

"Dorna know about all this and have accepted that Valentino will not finish the season, but they trust that he will return next year with a winning project and it is good for them that it is not with Ducati, since they (Ducati) are refusing to accept the RPM limit, something that is going to be applied next season, placing in doubt the future of the Borgo Panigale manufacturer in MotoGP."

I discussed this story with its author. He is confident that his sources are reliable.

Do I believe all this? I believe all this is part of the narrative that Rossi’s people are leaking to the press. I could probably have written the same story without the final paragraph, but my experience with Rossi stories over the years is that the nine times World Champion is very good at using the press to apply pressure upon whomever he is trying to convince.

My best guess is that nothing is completely decided yet and that there is still one last "new" Ducati to be introduced at the latest in France. I agree with Pernat that, unless there is a significant improvement, Rossi will want out, but whether he finishes the season or not will depend on how the contracts have been written, and, finally, whether, if the next evolution of the Ducati is not a big improvement, Ducati even wants to continue in an exercise that is producing a steady stream of negative publicity for the factory.

Time will tell.

By the way, in case you forgot, Lorenzo won the race from Pedrosa and Stoner.