Andrea Dovizioso once again suffered what has become an increasingly regular fate for him during Sunday’s Catalan Grand Prix at Barcelona, when fellow Ducati rider Johann Zarco got caught up in an incident in front of him and wiped out the championship leader.
Only the latest in a long series of crashes caused by other people that have taken him out, it’s perhaps in part testament to the fact Dovizioso is more racer than qualifier.
He may have been championship runner-up for the past three seasons, but he regularly finds himself mid-pack on the opening laps of frantic and frenetic MotoGP battles. And that increases the risk of being taken out – which is something that has happened to him a ridiculous number of times in the last five years.
With Sunday’s race-ending (and perhaps championship-bid-ending) fall not even the first time he’s been wiped out by a Ducati rider or at the Montmelo circuit, we looked back at all the times he’s been in the wrong place at the wrong time in the past few seasons.
Malaysian Grand Prix 2015: Cal Crutchlow
Completely overshadowed by the rather high-profile crash between two other riders a few laps later in the race, Dovizioso was battling for fourth place at Sepang with LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow when the British rider made an aggressive lunge up the inside of him at the fast Turn 6.
Though Crutchlow only just made contact with the Ducati Desmosedici GP16’s radical new winglets as he squeezed past, it was enough contact to leave Dovi on the deck and Crutchlow clear of him – only to then be hunted down by Bradley Smith and demoted to fifth anyway!
Argentine Grand Prix 2016: Andrea Iannone
It looked set to be an almost perfect day in Argentina for Ducati going into the final lap, with one of its best-ever results on the cards as Dovizioso ran in second place behind Marc Marquez, with team-mate Andrea Iannone behind him in third for the brand’s first double podium in over a year.
That is, until Iannone (not nicknamed The Maniac for nothing!) made a wild last corner lunge on his team-mate, wiping out both of them.
The crash was eventually more painful for Iannone than Dovi, though.
The Ducati management tore up his 2017 contract and elected to keep Dovizioso on as the newly-signed Jorge Lorenzo’s team-mate instead.
Grand Prix of the Americas 2016: Dani Pedrosa
You know you’ve got to be unlucky to get wiped out twice in the space of a week, and to get done in for the second time by a rider normally as careful and precise as Dani Pedrosa is just rubbing salt into the gravel rash.
However, you could argue that it’s one of the cases where Dovi’s bad luck was at least partially his own making.
Running third behind Lorenzo, he made a mistake into Austin’s tricky Turn 1, braking late and running wide.
That perhaps unsettled Pedrosa behind him, who got the Repsol Honda all crossed up as he leaned in, tucked the front, and wiped out a badly-positioned Dovi as he cut back onto the normal racing line.
Argentine Grand Prix 2017: Aleix Espargaro
The Termas de Rio Hondo circuit is one that doesn’t bring particularly good memories for Dovizioso, after two DNFs in three years from contact with other riders. However, arguably there’s more blame on Dovizioso than on Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro for 2017’s incident at Turn 5.
Attempting to overtake fellow Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci for sixth with his trademark late braking style, Dovizioso ran deep into the corner, leaving the following Espargaro with nothing he could do to avoid contact, taking the pair of them out of the race.
There was a small mercy for Dovizioso, though, with a fall for title rival Marquez handing the race win to Maverick Vinales and keeping him third in the title race, seven points clear of the Honda rider at that point.
Spanish Grand Prix 2018: Jorge Lorenzo
Even with a full season on the Ducati as Dovizioso’s team-mate under his belt, things hadn’t been going well for Lorenzo as he struggled to get the bike working the way he wanted.
However, slowly but steadily things started to improve, and by the time the championship arrived at Jerez, he was looking confident enough to finally challenge for podiums.
That’s how he found himself locked in a dice with Dovizioso and Pedrosa for second place… until once again, Dovizioso’s late-braking style put him in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Making a pass on Lorenzo, he ran wide coming out of Turn 6 – which left the door open for Pedrosa, who made a lunge of his own on the pair. Lorenzo, hanging off the side of the bike, never saw the Honda as he rejoined the racing line, made contact, took out both of them – and launched two bikes right into the path of Dovizioso. Race over.
Catalan Grand Prix 2019: Jorge Lorenzo again
They say lightning never strikes twice, but in Dovizioso’s case that’s simply not the case, as he discovered at Barcelona last year when Lorenzo, now a Honda rider, reacquainted himself!
In similar circumstances to the year prior at Jerez, Lorenzo had just started to find his confidence on the RC213V at his home race after a difficult start to the season and found himself in the podium battle.
Perhaps a bit over-eager, he made a wildly over-enthusiastic overtake on Vinales at the Turn 10 hairpin. Tucking the front, Lorenzo managed to not only take out the Yamaha rider but also smashed into the back of Dovi to wipe him out – and then for good measure, Vinales’ bike careened across into the path of his Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi to make it four on the deck in one move.
British Grand Prix 2019: Fabio Quartararo
Maybe the scariest incident on this list is Dovizioso’s high-speed collision with Fabio Quartararo at Silverstone’s fast Copse corner last year only seconds after the lights went out.
Going into the corner before their full electronic rider aid package had kicked in after the start, Alex Rins had a big rear slide in front of Quartararo, triggering avoiding action but resulting in his own rear slide and a fast crash.
Dovizioso, seventh on the grid but already looking to make up places, was left with nothing he could do and nowhere to go, getting collected by Quartararo and left laying in the gravel trap looking at his Ducati burning away.
Catalan Grand Prix 2020: Johann Zarco
Another pure racing incident triggered by someone else’s mistake, it was this time Dovizioso’s team-mate Petrucci who set in motion the events that took down Dovi at Barcelona last weekend.
Making a monumental save on the opening lap at Turn 2, Petrucci sat up Johann Zarco, who then tucked the front and went sliding out of the race.
Dovizioso, starting from way back in the field after qualifying a disastrous 17th, couldn’t do anything as his own bike from last year cut across in front of him.
Though it was Dovizioso’s first DNF of the otherwise-manic 2020 season, it nonetheless allowed race winner Quartararo to open up the first significant gap over the Ducati rider in the title battle – and could well prove to be a decisive factor in who wears the crown at Algarve in November.
