After crashing out of contention at the Catalan GP, Andrea Dovizioso’s (Ducati Team) title challenge took a huge dent. Main Championship rival Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) dodged the Lap 2, Turn 10 chaos to stretch his advantage out to 37 points ahead of the Motul TT Assen this weekend – but has Dovizioso lost hope? Absolutely not.
And the Italian arrives at the TT Circuit Assen knowing he and Ducati have every chance of claiming victory, despite the layout traditionally not being a favourable one for the Bologna factory. Both he and teammate Danilo Petrucci have shown strong pace throughout the season and if it wasn’t for the four-rider incident in Barcelona, a third-straight Ducati win at the Catalan GP could well have been on the cards.
Dovizioso’s record on a Desmosedici in Assen isn’t the best, just one podium coming his way in 2014, but Dovi has achieved podiums in Assen on three different manufacturers: Honda, Yamaha and Ducati in 2011, 2012 and the aforementioned 2014. So, the number 04 is no stranger to stepping onto the ‘Cathedral of Speed’ shrine and a repeat will go nicely in 2019 after narrowly missing out in the epic 2018 Dutch battle. His main target will now be to beat Marquez to cut the deficit, but there are no signs of panic setting in yet.
“There's no time to linger on the points lost at Barcelona, we need to tackle each race working as hard as we've done until now,” comments Dovizioso. “I believe we are showing great competitiveness and, even though there are always areas to improve, we have proven our speed.
“Assen isn't the most favourable track for our bike and weather conditions always play a fundamental role there, but at any race, we've shown we're capable of progressively improving during the course of a weekend even on tricky circuits. We need to stay calm and focused, taking it one race at a time. The Championship has still a long way to go.”
Watch Dovizioso and his competitors in action for the first time at the 2019 Dutch GP when the MotoGP™ riders head out for FP1 at 09:55 local time (GMT+2).