Andrea Dovizioso took his Ducati Desmosedici GP machine to a sixth place finish in the Czech Grand Prix, which was held today at the Brno circuit. The race, which was declared ‘wet’ by Race Direction, started on a damp track surface but this soon dried out, and the outcome was decided above all by the different strategies chosen by the riders and the teams for the change-over of the bikes.
Andrea Dovizioso powered away well from the second row and crossed the line at the end of the opening lap in third place. The Italian then came back into the pits to change his bike on lap 6 and he returned to the race in fifteenth place, managing to recover to sixth overall after passing Petrucci two laps from the end.
Jorge Lorenzo had an unlucky race, after the Spanish rider had led for the first three laps and then returned to the pits on lap 5. Unfortunately a setback during the bike change-over lost him precious time in the pit-lane, Lorenzo returned to the track in nineteenth place, a fair distance behind the other top riders, and in the end he could only make it back up to fifteenth overall.
In the overall standings Dovizioso remains in third place, twenty-one points behind leader Marquez, while Lorenzo drops to tenth with 66 points.
The Ducati Team riders will stay behind tomorrow to take part in a one-day official test at the Brno circuit and then the MotoGP circus will head to the Red Bull Ring at Zeltweg for next Sunday’s Austrian GP.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 6th
“Unfortunately it was a complicated race and we were unable to decide the right strategy. For sure I should have come in before and changed to medium slicks like my rivals did. When I returned to the track and realized that I was in sixteenth place it was a bit tough, but I gritted my teeth and pushed hard until the end to bring home at least a sixth place. Even the ten points we scored today could be useful for the championship but to be honest, after the way the weekend had gone up until this morning, we could have got a lot more from this race.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 15th
“Today’s race was a real shame. The weather was so unpredictable and it stopped raining when I was really fast on the damp track. I felt pretty good and I think we could have been able to fight for the win if the conditions had remained the same. Then we made an error with the bike change, because when the team signalled to me to return to the pits the bike wasn’t ready and we lost a bit of time, which ruined the rest of my race. For sure we’ll learn from this negative experience and won’t repeat the same error, but the positive thing from this weekend is that we were always competitive, both in the wet and the dry. Now we’re going to a circuit, where we should be amongst the favourites and so we’ll do everything possible to demonstrate it in the race.”
