Andrea Dovizioso produced another great performance today in the Dutch TT race at Assen to move to the top of the MotoGP championship standings. The Ducati Team’s Italian rider, who started from row 3 after qualifying ninth on Saturday, finished today’s eight round in fifth place as the half-way point of the season approaches. The last time a Ducati rider led the world championship table was the 2009 Italian Grand Prix with Casey Stoner.
After finishing the opening lap in seventh place, Dovizioso began a thrilling come-back which took him up to second on lap 21, when light rain began to fall on the Dutch circuit. After a terrific scrap with Rossi and Petrucci, who eventually finished first and second, the Italian rider was caught first by Marquez and then by Crutchlow and he finished his race in fifth without wishing to jeopardize his championship lead, especially in view of the tricky track surface conditions.
The next round of the championship is the German Grand Prix on Sunday at the Sachsenring circuit.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 3rd
“Today’s race was a very difficult one and having to start from row 3 complicated things a bit. At the start I wasn’t able to be very smooth and I lost touch with the leading group, but I remained focussed to see where I could recover and when Viñales crashed in front of me, I pushed hard to get back up with the leading group. At that moment I was the quickest on the track and this is a good sign for our bike. When I came up on the leaders it started to rain but you couldn’t really see where the track was dry and where it wasn’t. For this reason I didn’t want to take any risks and I tried to finish the race in the best possible way to score some valuable points for the championship. We go back home in the lead of the table and it’s a new emotion for me because I’ve never been in the lead of MotoGP. I want to thank all my team because this weekend we again worked really well and despite the constantly changeable weather conditions, we made the right decisions, we stayed calm and in this end it all paid off.”

Andrea Dovizioso will start tomorrow’s eighth round of the MotoGP World Championship at the Assen TT circuit from the third row of the grid after the Italian was ninth quickest in qualifying with a time of 1’48.079. After the morning’s FP3 session, which was held in the wet and as a result did not affect access to Q2 for the top 10 times set yesterday, Andrea went out again for FP4, which he finished in sixth, and then the second qualifying run, again on a wet track. After crashing out on his first flying lap, Dovizioso was able to return to the pits and go out again on his second bike, setting the ninth quickest time.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’48.079 (9th)
“For some reason, today we weren’t able to find the feeling we normally have with the Desmosedici in wet conditions. Then in qualifying I made a mistake and crashed, and this obviously conditioned my grid position. The team however were great in getting the other bike ready for me, and I was able to do two laps with this and improve my grid position a bit. Tomorrow it’ll be important to make the best of the warm-up in order to try and improve the bike set-up but in any case I think we can do a good race.”

Andrea Dovizioso wrapped up the first day of free practice action for this weekend’s Dutch TT round of the 2016 MotoGP World Championship, in fourth place. The Ducati Team’s Italian rider, who had also been fourth in the morning’s FP1 session, clocked a time of 1’33.790 on his third and final run in FP2 in the afternoon.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’33.790 (4th)
“I’m pleased because we started well and I’m satisfied with the time I set, but we will have to work more to improve our set-up because we must be a bit more competitive in some sectors, especially T3 and T4. Today Viñales and Marquez were particularly quick and, if the track conditions are dry tomorrow, we will try and get closer to them.”

Andrea Dovizioso scored his second GP win in seven days with another superb performance in the Catalan Grand Prix. Just one week after winning the Italian GP at Mugello, the Ducati Team rider powered to victory, for the fourth time in the premier class, in front of almost 100,000 spectators at the Montmelò circuit outside Barcelona.
Starting off well from row 3, Dovizioso crossed the line at the end of the opening lap in third, and he moved up to second on lap 8 after passing his team-mate Lorenzo and then Marquez. Andrea hounded Pedrosa until lap 17, when he attacked his Spanish rival to take the lead, which he maintained until the chequered flag and finishing with a gap of more than three and a half seconds over Marquez.
In the overall standings, Andrea Dovizioso confirmed his second place but he has closed the gap on leader Viñales to just seven points.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1st
“I’m so happy but also a bit surprised by this win! I had a great feeling before the start because I knew that we could be very competitive, not because we were the fastest out there on the track, but because yesterday we worked well to prepare for the race. It was a strategic race more than anything else and we were good at interpreting the limits of the track and the tyres. The track was very difficult and all the riders had problems with grip, which dropped off a lot and so we concentrated on administering tyre consumption and on consistency, and this decision paid off. In the race I was able to be very fast without pushing hard when I found myself behind Pedrosa and this helped me a lot in the last ten laps, when I passed him and then pulled out a small gap over the two Hondas. I can truly say that today we were on really great form!”

The Ducati Team rider got off to a positive start at the Montmelò circuit on the outskirts of Barcelona, where Sunday’s Catalan Grand Prix will be taking place. At the end of the first day of practice Andrea Dovizioso was in fourth place.
Some slight rain in the morning meant that most of the first session was wasted, and it was only towards the end of FP1 that the riders were able to lap on slicks on a dry track. Andrea Dovizioso finished the session in third.
In the afternoon the conditions improved considerably with blue skies, sun and temperatures rising to 26°C. During FP2 the Italian Ducati rider made three exits from the box and set his best time towards the end of the session, when he fitted soft tyres on his 2017 Desmosedici GP machine, finishing in fourth with a lap of 1’44.883.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’44.883 (4th)
“Even though we found the track in quite a bad state and with a lot of holes, the test a couple of weeks ago helped us to establish a good base and today we set some good times. I think that we have to work on consistency more than speed because the grip of the rear tyre drops very quickly and the pace that we’ll be able to keep after a few laps will be very important. In any case today we started well and tomorrow we’ll work to try and improve the feeling at the front.”