Andrea Dovizioso will start tomorrow’s eighth round of the MotoGP World Championship at the Assen TT circuit from the third row of the grid after the Italian was ninth quickest in qualifying with a time of 1’48.079. After the morning’s FP3 session, which was held in the wet and as a result did not affect access to Q2 for the top 10 times set yesterday, Andrea went out again for FP4, which he finished in sixth, and then the second qualifying run, again on a wet track. After crashing out on his first flying lap, Dovizioso was able to return to the pits and go out again on his second bike, setting the ninth quickest time.
It was a difficult qualifying session for Jorge Lorenzo, who will start tomorrow’s race from row 7 in twenty-first place. This morning the Spanish rider was eighth quickest in FP3, but had to take part in Q1 in the early afternoon because of his fourteenth place in yesterday’s FP2. After finishing FP4 in second, Jorge went out for Q1 but, because of a scarce feeling with his bike in the heavy rain, could only finish the session in eleventh.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’48.079 (9th)
“For some reason, today we weren’t able to find the feeling we normally have with the Desmosedici in wet conditions. Then in qualifying I made a mistake and crashed, and this obviously conditioned my grid position. The team however were great in getting the other bike ready for me, and I was able to do two laps with this and improve my grid position a bit. Tomorrow it’ll be important to make the best of the warm-up in order to try and improve the bike set-up but in any case I think we can do a good race.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 1’48.219 (21st)
“Once again today was a difficult day for me, because we found the worst possible conditions and the feeling with the bike was worse just at the most important moment. I didn’t have any grip in the corners, either when I was at maximum lean or when I opened the throttle, and so I wasn’t able to push hard in the rain in Q1. Tomorrow morning we’ll have to prepare the bike well in the warm-up, which should be dry, and then try and get a good start in the race and find the right pace that will allow us to make a good recovery.”
