Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso has admitted his crash in MotoGP free practice four this morning badly affected his confidence ahead of qualifying at Phillip Island - a track where you need confidence in order to set quick laptimes.
Dovizioso went down heavily on the downhill run from Lukey Heights to MG, losing the front on the brakes in a crash that was mirrored later by Danilo Petrucci in qualifying. He will start from 11th on the grid while title rival Marc Marquez is ten places ahead on pole.
“It is a consequence of the crash. The only riders who went fast with the medium were Marc, Zarco and me. All the other riders on the medium were quite slow. So I think we confirm a good speed. But most of the riders used the soft tyre and in qualifying I didn’t have a perfect feeling to really make a good laptime,” said Dovizoso, speaking at the track.
“Phillip Island has a strange characteristic - you have to be so confident and make a lot of speed in the fast corners. If you don’t have a really good feeling it is so easy to lose tenths corner-by-corner and this is what happened. With a bad feeling I did three mistakes at my fastest lap. I was able to make a better laptime. No excuse, but for sure the reality about the pace in the race is completely different.”
