Dovizioso takes positives after going close

Andrea Dovizioso came frustratingly close to challenging for his first win of the season at Montmeló on Sunday as he battled Jorge Lorenzo for the race lead, but a crash with ten laps to go saw the Repsol Honda rider lose his place and eventually return to the track in 15th position.

The Italian got off to a good start from the second row of the grid and was engaged early on in a fight with Lorenzo, with the pair becoming detached from the rest of the field as the contest progressed. However Dovizioso started to have problems with his rear brake on corner entry and on lap 15 he suffered a crash that ended his chances of overcoming Lorenzo or at worst taking second place.

“Today we had a really good race pace and we could have fought with Lorenzo for the win at the end of the race,” said Dovizoso, who regained one position after rejoining the race to finish 14th. “Unfortunately though, from lap one my rear brake was not really working properly in the last part of the corner entry and this gave me some problems entering corners and mid corner. I was still able to be fast, but this issue put more weight on the front, it was very difficult to control - I was always at the limit.”

He continued: “Then at turn nine of lap 15 I went a little bit over the limit and crashed. It’s a pity but I have to take the positives from today - and fighting at the front of the race is where we want to be and we achieved that for a time today. Anyway, I’m happy with my performance, and I’m sorry for the team because we are all working hard. Next time we’ll aim to be back up front again.”

Despite his crash Dovizioso maintained third place in the Championship standings, but is now 22 points off team-mate Dani Pedrosa, a situation he will hope to alter at the eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland which takes place from July 16th-18th.