“The chase for the title is difficult but not impossible,” Andrea Dovizioso told bikesportnews.com at Phillip Island after a disastrous Australian MotoGP saw him lose a pile of points to race winner Marc Marquez.

Dovizioso still believes in the championship could be won and will give it all at Sepang next weekend. “Phillip Island is all about turning and we found the limits of our machine - Malaysia is a different story.”

Not even in his worst dreams did Dovizioso imagine leaving Australia with a disadvantage of 33 points to Marquez. This year the 31-year-old Italian has been a different man, capable of winning in all conditions while unleashing the black horse (the irrational side) represented on his helmet when needed, or managing a perfect race with his white horse (the rational side), also depicted on his Suomy.

The Australian GP was a nightmare for all the Ducati riders: “The worst race of the year”, as Dovizioso, Jorge Lorenzo and Danilo Petrucci defined it and it’s not difficult to believe considering that to find them we need to start from the bottom of the classification with Petrucci 21th, Lorenzo 15th and Dovizioso, who is fighting for the title, only in 13th place.

What happened? To understand we need to rewind the race weekend, starting with the eve of the race with the Ducati rider announcing that with 11 points of gap from the Honda rider, he had to give it all in the race to close the gap. Dovizioso knew that Phillip Island was a good track for Marquez and his Honda, but he had an inner truth. “No-one is unbeatable in the sport. Not even Marquez,” said Dovizioso on Thursday, a simple statement that becomes strength and motivation for the Italian.

“We are relaxed and aware that we stronger than the previous years. The most important thing about the race at Motegi was not the win, but the confirmation of our race pace. We have nothing to lose: if we win the title, it will be a masterpiece, otherwise with can say that we did a marvellous season.”

Calm but incredibly determined, the new Dovizioso tackled the Australian weekend with everything he had. He started well on day one finishing third at only 0.097 behind the surprise package of Aleix Espargaro on Aprilia.
On Saturday, a crash in FP4 on the downhill run from Lukey Heights to MG, where he lost the front on the brakes, affected Dovizioso’s confidence. “Marquez is the only rider who doesn’t lose the feeling after a crash: I don’t think this is something you can learn, it’s more a mental attitude. For sure this is one of his strengths, because all the riders are affected by a crash,” confessed Dovi, who qualified 11th.

“Phillip Island is a strange and demanding track, there are many fast corners and it’s very windy, but to be fast 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. We couldn’t be fast on a single lap with the Ducati, but fortunately the pace in the race is completely different.”

Lorenzo confirmed Dovi’s words: “There is only one Ducati in the Q2, this means that we are struggling a lot here at Phillip Island and that Dovizioso is making the difference,” said the Spaniard who qualified on row six.

Finishing sixth in the warm up with pole setter Marquez once again first, the pressure was all on Dovizioso at the start of the race, who had only option: recovering positions from the fourth row and give it all to gain as many points as possible. Eleventh at the end of the opening lap, the Italian then braked very late for at Doohan and dropped down to 20th. Despite a good recovery, which took him back up to 11th place, Dovizioso was not able to make up any more places and at the final corner of the last lap he was overtaken by Redding and Pedrosa, finishing his race in 13th place.

How much was the race result was affected by the crash on Saturday? “It’s not related. I made a mistake at the beginning of the race that complicated my recovery. I took a slipstream and I arrived too fast at the first corner, I braked more or less as usual but I couldn’t stop the bike and went wide. Apart from this mistake, in the race I understood that we didn’t had the speed.

“Maybe the choice of the rear tyre was not the best one (Dovizioso opted for the medium front and the soft rear), but if on the podium we see riders with different tyre choices, like Marc Marquez and Maverick Vinales who opted for a rear soft or Valentino Rossi with a rear medium, it means that the tyre choice was not so crucial and that both options could work well in the race. In the practices we saw that with the soft we could have an advantage in the beginning of the race, but we were not sure if we could finish the race. Considering how we stressed the medium tyre, the difference was subtle.

“The truth is another. Today’s result is the confirmation of the limit of our bike. The GP17 has improved in many aspects during the season, but our weak point remains the corner speed. Phillip Island features many long fast corners where you don’t brake very much, you need to ride fluid and fast and here our limits in making the bike turning are magnified. The confirmation is that all the Ducatis struggled today.

“With the Ducati we can make the difference in braking and acceleration but we are weak in the corner speed and at Phillip Island it is the corner speed that counts. We knew we could struggle here, but this year in other circuits where we used to suffer, we could make the difference, so we started strong and motivated. On Friday I did a very good lap time with used tyres. Why couldn’t I repeat in the race the same result? In the practice you can arrange things in a different way, I had prepared that lap. I studied Vinales and I did everything well.

“But practices don’t reflect the reality race. At the end of the practice day you see certain results, but then it depends on how you did those lap times. The crash on Saturday affected the qualifying result and starting from 11th made the race more complicated, but we didn’t have the speed in the race. I was riding in 1’30 when I was pushing, then 1’31 in the middle of the race with Dani (Pedrosa). I didn’t have the speed in the middle of the corner and consequently the grip drops. It drops because in this track you don’t have so much grip and you need to be fast, riding more fluid.

“I tried to remain positive and I was telling myself some lies. I was motivating myself with the medium tyre and hoping that the front riders could also make a mistake. But it didn’t happen. It was very clear to me how the situation was.”

Was Dovi frustrated because he lost a one-time opportunity? “We need to face the reality, that’s it. The reality is that we have been good so far in the season to manage different situations, we have done good races but here we found this limit. Looking at the lap times, if I didn’t do that mistake on turn one, I could arrive with the KTMs. Maybe a bit better? It doesn’t change so much.”

The chase for the title is now becoming difficult as the MotoGP circus heads to Malaysia next week for the penultimate round of the season. “Sepang is a good circuit for us, I won last year with Ducati so I have good memories. But with such a big gap this is not the moment to think at the championship. Arriving in Malaysia with minus 33 points from the leader makes our race and our chase for the title very complicated, but I want to maintain my positive approach to the race weekend. We will find a different track layout and hot temperatures, so everything can happen. In Australia we saw a crazy battle in front.”

Looking at Marc’s battle for the win, Dovizioso confessed: “He is incredible, he likes to play with the fire. He is strong and when you feel strong, you can do these things. I don’t believe in good or bad luck.

“I still believe in the possibility of winning the title, it’s difficult but not impossible. It’s difficult if Marquez continues to win and because if Marc doesn’t do well, he finishes on the podium, but we will continue to fight.”