Whilst ninth place was never likely to be cause for celebration,
Andrea Dovizioso at least had the ‘honour' of being the best placed Michelin rider in Brno following a race dictated by the tyres rather than the rider or the bike.
The Italian rookie has consistently been one of the best riders to use the French rubber this season and while he displayed nothing less in the Czech Republic, ninth place was a clear reminder of how far off the ultimate pace they were.
Nonetheless, Dovizioso was mostly sanguine about the outcome, resigning himself to the fact that he could do nothing more than get as close to his
Bridgestone rivals as he could, an objective he ultimately achieved.
He even closed the gap slightly to fourth place
Jorge Lorenzo in the overall standings, albeit by just a single point, but his reaction to the result was not a positive one.
”My goal for the race was to be the first Michelin rider home, which is what I have achieved, but things were too difficult to do better. I started fully motivated and wanting to give the maximum and exploit fully the material at our disposal, but today I cannot be satisfied with the result.
“I had difficulty with the front tyre and was forced to change my style of riding, which meant not being able to exploit my speed in the corners. I had to stop hard and fire the bike out of the corners, rather than have a smoother style. This difficulty penalised us in the race.”
JiR Team Scot director Gianluca Monitron was similarly under whelmed by the result, but was proud that Dovizioso was again performing to the best of his abilities.
“After this weekend we must give merit and praise for Andrea and the team's efforts for their hard work. Andrea himself has demonstrated once again his technical skills, and his ability to interpret, and adapt his style of riding to the package at his disposal.
“He has shown himself to be a great professional, both inside and outside of the
MotoGP world. In the end, we gained points that bring us closer to what could be our end goal of the season, which is fourth place in championship standings.”
