Variable weather conditions influenced Saturday’s proceedings at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli for round 14 of the MotoGP World Championship 2022, which is Andrea Dovizioso’s farewell round after a long and successful Grand Prix career.

Andrea Dovizioso’s emotional farewell from MotoGP at his home Grand Prix in Misano has truly been a tribute down the memory lane as the whole MotoGP paddock recalls back some of his great battles over 20 years of his racing career.

Over the course of his long career, Dovi achieved 20 poles, 24 wins, 103 podiums and 3,796 points in all classes. He is the only rider to win a MotoGP race in three different decades in 2000s, 2010s and 2020s placing him as one the MotoGP greats and one of the final two from the class of 2010 to retire from the World Championship.

In his final race, he launched off from P18 on the grid and managed to keep a decent pace throughout all his final 27 laps. Due to several crashes in front of him, he moved up the order already on the first laps and was in 12th on the third lap.

Thanks to his strong rhythm, he managed to defend this position over the line to collect some ultimate four points in the MotoGP World Championship.

 

Andrea Dovizioso #04
P 12

“At the end, it has been a good race. There was a big disaster in front of me at the beginning but I did a good start, I was able to get some positions because a lot of riders crashed. But at the beginning of the race I was always trying but I couldn’t be fast. However, from the middle of the race until the end, I was able to be very consistent. I was very focused on that because I could keep the 12th position. At the end, I’m happy with that, I’m happy to finish here with the fans and all the people. Thank you very much to everyone.”

Variable weather conditions influenced Saturday’s proceedings at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli for round 14 of the MotoGP World Championship 2022, which is Andrea Dovizioso’s farewell round after a long and successful Grand Prix career.

On this grand occasion, Dovi went out with a special helmet today, dedicated to eventful races and seasons of his racing life. With this helmet, he managed to improve on his fastest lap from yesterday already in FP3 by 0.178 seconds, but finished down in P21. In the all-important Qualifying session, he was doing decent lap times in the beginning and came in to change tyres in order to freshly attack on his second run. Yet unfortunately, some rain hit the track in this moment, so Andrea was unable to further improve. He ended up in P8 of Q1, which means P18 of the starting grid for his last race.

Andrea Dovizioso #04
P 18

“In the afternoon, I think we improved a bit, because my pace with the used tyres was a bit better than in the other sessions. But the feeling on the front is still not at 100%, we’ll try something for that tomorrow in the Warm Up. In Qualifying, I started with a good feeling and I knew I could push more in the second run, but there weren’t the right conditions, so I couldn’t give my maximum. But let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

All eyes are on Andrea Dovizioso for his final weekend as a MotoGP rider during the San Marino Grand Prix.

Through all the emotions and activities, the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team rider still sets his full focus on track action, which commenced with Free Practice one and Free Practice two today.

The Italian landed a P16 in this morning’s first session of the weekend, missing out on the top by just a bit more than one second and showing some promising signs. In FP2, Dovizioso managed to improve his lap time by 0.541 seconds compared to FP1 under the Italian sun. Yet, he went back to P20 in the combined standings, losing out 0.652 seconds to the top 10. Nevertheless, the home hero and his experienced crew already have some ideas to step forward tomorrow.

Free Practice three, which starts on Saturday at 09.55 local time, will offer another very important opportunity for Dovi to get closer to the top in order to be prepared for the all-important Qualifying, which starts just after FP4 at 14:10 local time.

 

Andrea Dovizioso #04

“I’m happy because in the afternoon we improved the feeling a bit with a different feeling on the front fork. My lap time was acceptable, but when I did my time attack, I used a medium front and I didn’t feel well with it. Therefore, I couldn’t push and couldn’t improve. The position doesn’t look great, so let’s see if we can use the hard tyre tomorrow with probably lower temperatures.”