MotoGP: How is Andrea Dovizioso still the championship leader?
Somehow, Andrea Dovizioso leads the MotoGP standings after the second race at Misano.
After 7 races, Andrea Dovizioso continues to lead the MotoGP standings after the two races at Misano, something not even the rider himself can understand. Quite famously this weekend, Dovizioso sported an ‘Unemployed’ bum patch on his suit following the loss of a bet with friends. The bet stated that if he led the championship after the first race in Misano, he would have to do it, the patch annoying Ducati.
Looking at his results, there is no way Dovizioso should be leading the championship, he finished race 1 at Misano in P7, then P8 in race 2, hardly championship-winning consistency, yet it is working. In race 1, luck was on his side after Fabio Quartararo crashed out of the race twice, scoring 0 points, Dovizioso’s 7th place scoring him 9 points. enough to take the championship lead from Quartararo.
Then at race 2, he finished in 8th place, scoring 8 points and leads the championship by 1 point over Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales and a ‘Mir’ (bad joke) 4 points over Joan Mir. Dovizioso’s luck once again playing into his hand after Quartararo was demoted from P3 to P4 due to exceeding track limits, docking 3 points from the Frenchman. If Quartararo was not penalised, he would lead the championship by 2 points.
Dovizioso is a lucky man this season and can hardly believe it himself, “It is a strange championship but we can’t be happy. We lost a lot of positions on the first lap, being overtaken twice in one lap. I didn’t have the pace to recover, I feel that I was able to push a bit more than Misano 1 but still I am not riding in the way I need to so we can’t be happy about that.
We will be focused even more in the next round, I think it’ll be a different story due to the layout and the grip, it is very different compared to here.”
Only time will tell if Dovizioso will continue to lead the championship on Sunday next week, but if there’s one thing we know, there are plenty of riders waiting to snatch the lead.
Featured image – www.motogp.com
