The two Ducati Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow, concluded the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the tenth round of the MotoGP World Championship, in seventh and eighth place respectively.
The Italian rider, who started from second place on the grid, powered into the lead at the first turn, and at the end of lap 1 was holding down the second position. Until lap 15 Dovizioso then formed part of a terrific scrap with Marquez, Rossi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa, always remaining in the leading group. In the second half of the race Andrea had to slow his pace and gradually lost ground, dropping two places to Pol Espargarò and Smith in the final laps and finishing seventh.
Crutchlow, twelfth on the grid, struggled to find the right pace in the early stages, but thanks also to the retirement of several riders, he then moved up four places. After scrapping with Redding in the final laps he managed to get the better of his fellow Brit to finish eighth overall.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 7th
“Today we really have to be happy in any case. Even though the final gap was twenty seconds and we were unable to fight until the very end, we can leave Indianapolis quite satisfied because we were simply much quicker. Unfortunately the rear tyre dropped off a lot and I was forced to use a lot of energy, but in the early laps it was great fun to fight at the front of the leading group: there were also some aggressive contact moves but they were OK, because I was the fifth ‘intruder’ and no one wanted to lose touch with Marquez! We are continuing to work in the right direction, and I think that our performance today also shows that.”
Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team #35) – 8th
“We tried our best to improve the whole weekend and the team did a great job to be able to make a bike that was capable of being competitive. So I’m pleased with the result to finish eighth but not with the distance from the winner, which is still too far. After the arm operation I felt I was trying to recover a lot over the weekend but in the race I felt quite strong, it’s just that my GP14 was quite difficult to ride. Unfortunately I was just too slow in the first ten laps of the race, but after that my laps were quite fast and consistent.”
Luigi Dall’Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager)
“Even though the final positions of Andrea and Cal can’t give us a lot of satisfaction, we leave Indianapolis with the confirmation that our work, and the latest developments on the engine and the aerodynamics, are giving positive results. For sure it gave us a lot of pleasure to see Dovizioso’s excellent qualifying performance and his competitiveness and tenacity in the early stages of the race, but we are also aware that we have to continue to work hard to make further improvements to our bike.”
