After completing three winter testing sessions in Malaysia and Australia in February and two weeks ago in Qatar,Andrea Dovizioso and his team are now gearing up for the opening round of the 2017 MotoGP World Championship, scheduled for Sunday evening at the floodlit Losail International Circuit on the outskirts of Doha.
This year the Italian rider, who will celebrate his 31st birthday on Thursday, the day track activity for the first GP of the season gets underway, will share the box with Jorge Lorenzo. Dovizioso will be tackling the sixty-ninth edition of the championship on the 2017-spec Ducati Desmosedici GP, which was presented to the press on January 20th at the Ducati Auditorium in Borgo Panigale. During the pre-season test sessions, Dovizioso was able to improve his feeling with the new bike, and finished the final Losail test in second place.
The Qatar weekend, unlike the rest of the races in the calendar, will begin on Thursday evening with the first free practice session, while the race will be held on Sunday at 9pm local time (20.00 CET).
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04)
“In the test ten days ago at this circuit we did a good job, and so we come here ready for the different conditions that we might find. I’m pleased we were able to confirm our good performance and the bike’s competitive level, so I think we can aim for a good result. As always at the start of the season we still have a few aspects to resolve, especially for the race, because at this circuit it’s not easy to keep the same pace for 22 laps and the nature of the track takes away a lot of energy. In the last two years however I have always fought for the win and I hope to find myself in the same situation again this year, even though I know it’s not going to be easy because some of our rivals have excellent pace. I’m optimistic for the race however and I’m clearly aiming for the podium.”