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Andrea Dovizioso’s nightmare continued at the third round of the 2020 MotoGP championship at Brno, with the factory Ducati set to line up for Sunday’s Czech Grand Prix in a distant 18th place – only a year after finishing a close second to Marc Marquez.
Dovizioso is still unable to find any solution to his woes with Michelin’s new grippier rear tyre and he conceded that the problem hasn’t been fixed at all since last time out in Jerez, where he finished well out of podium contention in sixth.
“The problem has to be the tyre because that is the only thing that has changed,” Dovizioso said.
“It’s not an excuse – it is just the reality. I don’t know what happened in qualifying, because my pace in practice is not so bad. I wasn’t the fastest but not that bad.
“But when I had to do the lap time and push harder on the front, I wasn’t able to use the potential of the bike. It’s not clear. We’ve changed a lot of things but we haven’t changed the way the rear tyre affects things.
“In the past, I was able to brake hard, control the slide to the middle of the corner, come back to the middle of the corner and pick up the bike really well.
“We can’t do that now but we’ve tried a lot of things to try and fix it.”
Dovizioso was hoping that the very hot temperatures and twisty nature of the Jerez track – home to the opening two rounds of the abridged season – were to blame for their problems and he acknowledged today that it’s something that has kept him awake for longer than just two races with no end in sight.
“I’m a bit worried because when you look back to the winter tests, the situation was very similar. Malaysia was the same, Qatar was the same; our pace was really good but our lap time wasn’t,” said Dovizioso.
“We’ve been working but we haven’t found the way and it’s an unusual situation because normally when I’m fast or when I’m slow I know exactly why.”
Adding insult to injury was a strong day for teammate Danilo Petrucci.
After suffering hard in the heat of Jerez and unable to make any impact on the podium fight, Petrucci has sprung back into action at Brno and will start tomorrow’s race from eighth – a whole ten places ahead of his teammate.
“I am delighted with today because we have managed to achieve our main goals,” said Petrucci.
“Surely, the most important thing was trying to be fast in FP3 to access directly into Q2. I am also quite satisfied with the result of the qualification, but tomorrow it will be important to adopt a solid race strategy.
“The lack of grip makes the track conditions quite difficult, and we will also have to manage the tyre well to reduce their consumption. I will try to stay as close as possible to the front from the beginning to fight for the top positions.”
All of Dovizioso’s struggles come against a backdrop of uncertainty as well.
He is still to sign for Ducati for 2021 and is out of other options – and was dealt another blow on Saturday by satellite rider Johann Zarco taking pole position on Dovizioso’s 2019 bike.
Zarco didn’t mince his words after the stunning result either, being completely open about his desire to join the injured Pecco Bagnaia on a shortlist to replace Dovizioso should the Italian fail to accept Ducati’s paycut offer.
“The target is to have a good seat in Ducati for next year, but the first target is to work well this year,” said Zarco after qualifying.
“I have lost things you get from riding at a very top level, but they’re coming back and I need to thank Ducati for giving me this chance.
“My first job is to do a good job and to improve myself because I know if I do that my performance will come.
“After that, I will see where I can be in Ducati because I think the only solution is to stay with them.
“For what they did for me and for the team since last November, it is clear that I want to stay with them because I feel good on the bike and I feel like I can do more.
“They’re waiting for that, to see how I can perform in races before giving me a chance to why not have the factory bike?”
