Welcome to the beta version of the new Women & Golf website. Our web monkeys are still hard at work and welcome your feedback.  

Advertisement

MotoGP Valencia: New tyres helped Dovizioso to first career Valencia win

Factory Ducati MotoGP rider Andrea Dovizioso revealed that the new sets of Michelin rubber he and his Ducati team had kept aside helped him to victory around the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia for the first time.

With heavy rain for large portions of the weekend, many riders ran out of used all of their wet tyres up, leaving one set for todays 27-lap race. However, with todays race red flagged shortly after the midway point, all riders were allowed to change the tyres and do the second race with fresh tyres on.

Dovizioso said he capitalised on this, due to the fact he didn’t fit new tyres during warm ups. This in turn meant he could fit new tyres  to his Desmosedici, which helped him pull away from Alex Rins.

Advertisement

“To finish the season like this and win in Valencia means something strange, it’s a nice feeling,” said the Italian.

“At the beginning, in the first race, Alex started fast and I had to decide to take a risk and try to follow him or not, and I decided not to follow him as it was too much for me at that time. But after I understood I had some margin to play.

“The rain became heaver and heavier, and I was able to be a bit faster than him and that was good. But then after some laps I saw Valentino was much faster than me, he was almost one second faster than me. He caught me so quick. It was difficult to mange Alex and Vale and every lap the track become worse and worse and there were a lot of crashes.

“So I’m so happy about that and to finish the first race on the bike, it was becoming impossible in the last lap we did.

“But the reason we won was because we did the right decision this morning not to use the new tyre in the warm up so we have two tyres for the race. I was able to put in a new tyre in the second race in the rear.

“Also we did some change on the setup because Valentino was much faster in the breaking and entry the reason why I couldn’t be strong like him was the rear. So we did something to be able to break a bit harder. The mix between the tyre and the set up worked well so I’m so happy in the way we worked this weekend. In every practice our speed was good but we never was the fastest.

“But in the end in the qualifying in the race we were there. So I am so happy to finish the race like this and to give this victory to my team.”

Shortly before the red flag came out, Dovizioso put his hand in the air, making a signal to race direction about the conditions he was faced with. When asked about it, Dovizioso said: “We spoke in the safety commission, they asked us to give feedback about the conditions of the track, because from the TV it's not easy to understand if it's over the limit or okay. So I tried to give feedback and they took the decision immediately.”

After the second start, Dovizioso stayed much closer to the fast-starting Rins, in a bid to stop him escaping out front. Dovizioso said when it became clear he had the pace, he said he knew he could pull away from the Spaniard.

Advertisement

“I wanted to stop Alex because I was worried about what happened in the first race,” he said.

“But at the end I realised, after two laps, I was a bit faster than the first race and they were a bit slower than the first race. So I was able to do a good rhythm, and Alex couldn’t follow me because he didn’t have the new tyre.”

Articles you may like

Advertisement

More MotoGP

Advertisement
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram