The experienced man of the Ducati team (he refuses to be called "second rider") had started the season splendidly in Qatar, finishing in second position behind the then invincible Maverick Vinales. Unfortunately he was stopped dead in his tracks in the second race when Aleix Espargaro hit him unintentionally due to a gearbox problem on his Aprilia (false neutral) and caused him to fall.
After an honest sixth place obtained in the United States, Andrea finished fifth in Jerez. It wasn't bad on a circuit not very favorable to the Ducati, the only problem for Dovi being that his new teammate Jorge Lorenzo preceded him by finishing in third position, 8 seconds ahead of him.
The overall assessment of the Ducati team is not very satisfactory. In figures, this translates into third place in the team classification with 69 points behind Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (122 points) and Repsol Honda (110), and barely ahead of Tech 3 (64). In the manufacturers' standings, Ducati occupies third position with 59 points (and 8 motorcycles on the grid) behind Yamaha (83 points) and Honda (79).
In the drivers' standings, Dovizioso is in fifth place, 11 points behind Dani Pedrosa and 6 ahead Johann zarco. Ducati has just completed a day of testing at Mugello this week, the lessons from which should be useful for the French Grand Prix.
Andrea Dovizioso has had good results at Le Mans, finishing on the front row five times in nine years. Dovi has been on the French MotoGP podium three times, most recently in 2015 when he finished third.
According to Andrea Dovizioso, who are " After a fifth place in Spain, we now go to Le Mans with more optimism and confidence. In Argentina, but especially in Texas, we were in difficulty, but in Jerez, on a track notoriously insidious for us, we were quite competitive even if we finished the race quite far from Pedrosa.
“I think Le Mans could be a more favorable circuit for us, especially because we will be running on a new surface which offers good grip and therefore I think we can get a good result there. »
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 Valentino ROSSI-Yamaha 62 points
2 Maverick VIÑALES-Yamaha 60
3 Marc MARQUEZ-Honda 58
4 Dani PEDROSA-Honda 52
5 Andrea DOVIZIOSO-Ducati 41
6 Johann ZARCO-Yamaha 35
7 Cal CRUTCHLOW-Honda 29
8 Jonas FOLGER-Yamaha 29
9 Jorge LORENZO-Ducati 28
10 Danilo PETRUCCI-Ducati 26
11 Scott REDDING-Ducati 26
12 Jack MILLER-Honda 21
13 Aleix ESPARGARO-Aprilia 17
14 Alvaro BAUTISTA-Ducati 14
15 Loris BAZ-Ducati 12
16 Hector BARBERA-Ducati 12
17 Andrea IANNONE-Suzuki 9
18 Karel ABRAHAM-Ducati 9
19 Tito RABAT-Honda 8
20 Alex RINS-Suzuki 7
21 Bradley SMITH-KTM 3
22 Pol ESPARGARO-KTM 2
23 Sam LOWES-Aprilia 0
Photos © Ducati
