Andrea Dovizioso arrives in Thailand,where next Sunday will see the fifteenth round of the season, and the first-ever MotoGP race in the history of this country, second in the Riders’ standings after the second place he scored at Aragón. The Italian is now 72 points behind leader Marquez with five rounds remaining until the end of the season.
Buriram will be unchartered territory for all riders, even though three days of testing in mid-February helped the MotoGP protagonists to memorize the layout of the medium-fast track. As always in this part of the world, the weekend will be made even more challenging by the heat, the stuffy atmosphere and the probable rainstorms.
The Buriram weekend programme gets underway on Friday morning with the first free practice session at 9:55 local time (4:55 CET), while the 26 lap race is scheduled for Sunday at 14:00 (9:00 CET).
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 2nd (174 points)
“The Buriram track is very strange and we have never raced there so it will be a totally new situation for everyone. In the tests in February here in Thailand we didn’t do too badly at all, but now I think that we are much more competitive than what we were at the start of the season. We’ll have to see what the conditions are like because it might be hotter than in Malaysia and this will surely affect the race, but above all it looks like we’re already in the rainy season, so everything can happen.”