Andrea Dovioso: “The bike didn’t turn, didn’t brake and doesn’t accelerate in a good way”

Andrea Dovizioso majorly struggled in Brno around the Czech track, finishing the race in a low 11th place after qualifying in the worst position of his career.

Dovizioso has struggled massively in the last two races in Andalucia and Brno, he stated that he is beginning to suspect that what has worked for the last three seasons does not work.

The Ducati rider feels that the new Michelin rear tyre is not working with the Ducati GP20 as methods and set-ups which have been previously used are not working anymore.

Despite being very strong on the brakes previously, this is now an area that Dovizioso is having problems with, especially when compared to Johann Zarco.

“I’m not the kind of rider to try to use the excuse, but if you check my data I always have the front locked [when braking]. I’m putting my bike on the limit at that point and I’m losing a tenth on every braking. This means that we have to go in a different way.

“I was always the best in the braking but when I compare with Pecco in Jerez and today the two laps I really watched Zarco, I was losing a lot on the braking. This is unacceptable.” The Italian said regarding his braking issues which are plaguing him this year as Ducati look to battle for the title.

The factory Ducati rider was quick to mention that riders with less experience on the bike seemed to do better than others. Petrucci and Jack Miller also struggled with the bike whereas Bagnaia and Zarco who are relatively new to the set up excelled at Jerez and Brno, Zarco took a podium and Bagnaia was looking to take his maiden podium before a mechanical issue took him out of the race.

Speaking on Zarco and Bagnaia, Dovizioso said “Pecco and Zarco have less experience [with the bike], and I think they went in a different direction because they didn’t have the experience to follow what it was good to do for the Ducati in the last three years. But maybe with this tyre, the situation changed completely.”

“I think our limit is we followed what we did in the last three years because it worked, and it didn’t work [now].” Continued Dovizioso.

Danilo Petrucci backed up Dovizioso’s comments saying “We still don’t understand why Johann is so fast at the moment. He does not spin the rear tyre compared to me, Dovi and Jack. I have to look at the data from the race, but for sure he’s doing nothing really strange.”

A positive for Ducati is that they have good data from Johann Zarco which they can use to improve the Ducati GP20 compared to the GP19 of Zarco.

Ducati will be looking to win at Austria, they have a 100% win record at the track in Spielberg since MotoGP started racing there in 2016.

Featured image – www.motogp.com