MotoGP: Andrea Dovizioso, the title slipping away
Andrea Dovizioso is slowly but surely seeing his championship fight run away from him following a DNF at Catalunya.
It wouldn’t be a MotoGP season if Andrea Dovizioso didn’t suffer a DNF through no fault of his own, adding Johann Zarco to his collection of riders who have knocked him off which includes Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Iannone and Fabio Quartararo, to name a few. It is worth noting that it was not the fault of Zarco that he crashed, however, the sun and stars aligned at Catalunya and it was decided that Dovizioso must fall with the Frenchman.
This DNF followed by Quartararo’s race win meant that Quartararo was able to take the championship lead from Dovizioso and open up a 24 point lead over him, a lead which will be difficult to claw back in the last 6 rounds given that Dovizioso has scored 84 points in 8 races with 200 on the table, that’s less than half the points available to him in 2020.
He has had a troublesome season, quitting Ducati and deciding to focus on racing instead of contract talks, a move which could blow up in his face if he does not secure a 2021 ride, however, he could be off to racing cars instead, so it is not all doom and gloom.
In 8 races, he has taken just 2 podium finishes with a win a Austria, aside from this, 4 finishes were outside of the top 5 including a P11 finish at Brno, damaging his title chances even further.
Dovizioso cannot qualify very well, this is a fact, he has qualified around the P10 mark for many of the races this season, some races not even getting out of Q1, starting the CatalanGP from way down in 17th, giving himself a whole lot of work to do to get to the front.
These inconsistent results and qualifying issues are dropping him points at every round and are the reason the championship is running away from him, if he wants to put up a real championship fight, he needs to start qualifying well and scoring consistent podiums before a man in turquoise or blue takes the championship in what could be Dovizioso’s last real chance.
Featured image – www.motogp.com
