For the first day of free practice in Tuscany, Dovizioso didn't do things by halves and he only came close to setting the best time by two hundredths of a second. This therefore confirms at the appropriate time the competitiveness of the rider and his Ducati, which can only delight fans and comfort them for Sunday's race..
Dovi and his teammates Jorge Lorenzo et Michele Pirro came to carry out a day of testing on Wednesday last week at the Mugello Autodrome, and it was profitable for them because the Desmosedici proved to be one of the best of the lot on this Friday.
In the morning, Andrea made everyone agree with the best time in 1'47.394, already well below Marc Marquez's lap record of 1'47.639, which was promising for a first free practice session, so that the track was not in its ideal configuration, in particular due to the absence of rubber deposit.
He confirmed the afternoon with a time of 1'47.526, a little slower than in FP1, but still faster than the third overall this Friday. With a top speed of 350 km/h, Dovizioso's Desmosedici was one of five Ducatis who dominated the straight-line proceedings.
With his time achieved this Friday, Andrea has a good chance of being one of the ten drivers automatically qualified for Q2, because it is difficult to imagine nine opponents passing him in front of him during FP3. Dovi has three podium finishes as his best results at Mugello, with the third in 2006 on his Humangest Racing Team 250 Honda, the second in 2011 in MotoGP on a Honda 800 RC212V, when he was Casey Stoner's teammate in the factory team, then third again in 2012 on a Yamaha Tech3. Since joining Ducati in 2013, Dovi has placed 5th, 6th, 3rd and 5th in the Italian GP. He currently occupies sixth place in the provisional general classification with 54 points.
According to Andrea Dovizioso, “We started the weekend well, much better than expected and it is always important to start strong during a race weekend.
“My feeling is good and we were able to maintain a good pace even in the heat of the afternoon, but we weren't as fast as we would have liked in the middle of the corner, and that will be where our focus will be our work.
“In any case, we are really competitive, and today we also managed to try all the available tires because it was important to have information for tomorrow and for the race. »
Results of the two free sessions combined:
1 C.CRUTCHLOW GBR LCR Honda HONDA 1'47.365
2 A.DOVIZIOSO ITA Ducati Team DUCATI 1'47.394 to 0.029
3 J.FOLGER GER Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'47.543 at 0.178
4 M.PIRRO ITA Ducati Team DUCATI 1'47.595 at 0.230
5 M.VIÑALES SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP YAMAHA 1'47.669 to 0.304
6 ZARCO FRA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'47.674 to 0.309
7 D.PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'47.699 to 0.334
8 H.BARBERA SPA Reale Avintia Racing DUCATI 1'47.708 to 0.343
9 A.BAUTISTA SPA Pull&Bear Aspar Team DUCATI 1'47.728 at 0.363
10 J.LORENZO SPA Ducati Team DUCATI 1'47.747 at 0.382
11 A.IANNONE ITA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR SUZUKI 1'47.807 to 0.442
12 D.PETRUCCI ITA OCTO Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'47.950 at 0.585
13 M.MARQUEZ SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'47.980 to 0.615
14 V.ROSSI ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP YAMAHA 1'48.000 to 0.635
15 S.REDDING GBR OCTO Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'48.111 at 0.746
16 A.ESPARGARO SPA Aprilia Racing Team Gresini APRILIA 1'48.129 at 0.764
17 J.MILLER AUS EG 0,0 Marc VDS HONDA 1'48.664 to 1.195
18 T.RABAT SPA EG 0,0 Marc VDS HONDA 1 to 48.664
19 L.BAZ FRA Reale Avintia Racing DUCATI 1'48.751 to 1.386
20 S.LOWES GBR Aprilia Racing Team Gresini APRILIA 1'48.842 to 1.477
21 K.ABRAHAM CZE Pull&Bear Aspar Team DUCATI 6 1'48.925 to 1.560
22 P.ESPARGARO SPA Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'49.524 at 2.159
23 B.SMITH GBR Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'49.640 to 2.275
24 S.GUINTOLI FRA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR SUZUKI 1'50.054 to 2.689
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 Maverick VIÑALES-Yamaha 85 points
2 Dani PEDROSA-Honda 68
3 Valentino ROSSI-Yamaha 62
4 Marc MARQUEZ-Honda 58
5 Johann ZARCO-Yamaha 55
6 Andrea DOVIZIOSO-Ducati 54
7 Cal CRUTCHLOW-Honda 40
8 Jorge LORENZO-Ducati 38
9 Jonas FOLGER-Yamaha 38
10 Jack MILLER-Honda 29
11 Danilo PETRUCCI-Ducati 26
12 Scott REDDING-Ducati 26
13 Loris BAZ-Ducati 19
14 Aleix ESPARGARO-Aprilia 17
15 Andrea IANNONE-Suzuki 15
16 Alvaro BAUTISTA-Ducati 14
17 Tito RABAT-Honda 13
18 Hector BARBERA-Ducati 12
19 Karel ABRAHAM-Ducati 9
20 Alex RINS-Suzuki 7
21 Pol ESPARGARO-KTM 6
22 Bradley SMITH-KTM 6
23 Sam LOWES-Aprilia 2
24 Sylvain GUINTOLI-Suzuki 1
