Ducati Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Evan Williams)

Greatness and ego go hand in hand, and there is a lot of previous success here to build the egos. Rossi has nine world championships. Ducati built their MotoGP program from nothing to the 2007 World Championship in a short amount of time. Obviously, everyone involved feels they can come up with the answers.

Rossi isn’t content to shrug off losing and now he’s telling his legion of fans that the problem isn’t him.

It’s never that simple, sure. Rossi’s older, has had some injuries, and lost close friend Marco Simoncelli last year. He’s also been behind Hayden lately, who has taken a more workman-like approach.

The flip side? Rossi is not at a point where he’ll hang it all out to get fifth or sixth. Why does it matter, he asks. He came to Ducati to win and he says the bike isn’t capable right now. So it all goes back to the folks in charge at Corse.

It is clear some mistakes have been made along the way.

As Rossi was coming to Ducati, they shut down the World Superbike group and ramped up a dual development engine program with “Screamer” and “Big Bang” options. Perhaps they should have commenced a dual chassis development program instead, especially with the complaints about front-end feel going back to the Stoner days having been immediately reiterated by Rossi at his first test.

There is a ton of technology in MotoGP. That’s one of the things that makes it cool. But MotoGP is still a rider driven sport and the man at the controls has to be comfortable to push at the very high level to compete.

If the rider ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.