Andrea Dovizioso scored another podium finish today at Misano Adriatico with third place in the San Marino Grand Prix, which was held in the pouring rain. The Italian rider started from the front row in second and then battled almost all the race with Marquez and Petrucci but had to settle for third a few laps from the end, a result that confirms his position at the top of the table on equal points with Marquez.
A crash on lap 7 put paid to Jorge Lorenzo’s good race. The Spanish rider moved into the lead on the opening lap and immediately set the pace, opening up a gap of more than four seconds on the following riders, but his efforts on the wet track came to an end when he high-sided and retired.
Michele Pirro, taking part in his second wild-card race of the season with the Desmosedici GP of the Ducati Test Team, put in a good performance. The Italian, who started from row 4, recovered well to finish in fifth, just under three seconds away from Viñales.
The MotoGP World Championship will be back on track again in two weeks’ time at the Motorland Aragón circuit near Alcañiz in Spain.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 3rd
“In the end I’m happy with my third place because today I wasn’t able to find a perfect feeling with the bike. I tried to keep up with Marquez and Petrucci and I did for 20 laps, but the track conditions were really difficult. When they began to lower their lap times I would have had to take too many risks to stay in touch, and I preferred to slightly drop my pace to bring home the 16 points for third place, which is very important for the championship. The Misano weekend however confirmed that we can be competitive on every circuit and we can fight for the title until the very end.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – DNF
“What a pity about my crash! The bike was going very well and I was riding pretty calmly, without taking too many risks and trying to manage the tyres well. Unfortunately at a certain point I lost concentration trying to change the mapping to a different electronic configuration, I used the rear brake in a slightly different way and that was enough to cause a high-side and make me crash. I’m very disappointed about that because I think I could have won the race by a distance and instead I had to retire. Races are like that however and you have to accept that these things can happen.”
Michele Pirro (Ducati Test Team #51) – 5th
“The weekend hadn’t begun well with yesterday’s crash in qualifying, which unfortunately compromised my grid position, and today I didn’t want to take too many risks in the early laps so I started too slowly. From half-way through the race I started to lap at a good pace and I began my recovery, getting close to Viñales. But I was struggling to keep his pace and in the end I decided not to take too many risks because, after yesterday’s two crashes, I was keen to finish the race. I still have to improve because I’m lacking pace in the early stages of the race, but today I really enjoyed myself.”
