With milder temperatures compared with yesterday – about 20 degrees in the air and 30 degrees on the tarmac – Andrea Dovizioso gained direct access to the second and decisive qualifying session during FP3 in the morning and continued to work on race pace with positive feedback in FP4, then finally focused on a single, flying lap with a soft rear tyre.
In a Q2 characterized by extremely narrow gaps – with the first 10 riders separated by only half a second – Dovizioso seized second row with the fourth best time in 1:37.018.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 4th (1:37.018)
“I’m happy because we’ve been working really well up to this point, improving in each session. My feeling with the bike is good and even during qualifying, which is not usually my strongest suit, I managed to post a competitive time despite not doing a perfect lap. We’re ready to put up a challenge during the race tomorrow, even though Márquez still represents a question mark and weather conditions, in terms of temperatures, can play a significant role. For sure my confidence is higher than last year here. We started off on the right foot and we’ve always been among the frontrunners, but we know that the race will be a different story. Tomorrow we’ll have to stay focused to finalize the good work done up to this point.”