MotoGP: Championship battle not over for Dovizioso

Andrea Dovizioso says that the battle for the 2017 MotoGP championship is far from over, despite a disastrous weekend for him last time out in Phillip Island – and is confident that he can bounce back this weekend at a track where he took a stunning win twelve months ago.

Dovizioso was left struggling with a typical Ducati problem at the Australian race, unable to get the bike to turn through the long fast bends – and unable to do better than only just make it home in the points.

“Today’s race was a big disappointment and we really lost a lot of points in the championship. For sure my mistake in the early stages of the race complicated things and maybe even the choice of rear tyre was not the best one, but on this track our bike is still struggling a lot.

“This year we’ve managed to improve many aspects and be competitive throughout the season but when you come to tracks like this, where you don’t brake very much and where there are lots of long fast corners, some of our limits are magnified: in fact, here at Phillip Island none of the Ducati were very quick.”

However, despite the disappointment of Phillip Island, he says he’s positive that he can still fight for the title in the final two rounds of 2017.

“It’s a pity, because at this point of the season it would have been better to be closer to Marquez in the standings, but now we have to think of Malaysia, where quite simply we’ll have to give it our all.”