Everything was well settled and organized by Ducati for this home Grand Prix, with the starters Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso, as well as the support of Michele Pirro as a wild card. But the crack in a vertebra of Dovizioso disrupted all this beautiful order in a rather complicated way.
Iannone was declared fit to race by the Championship's medical team, Clinica Mobile, but permission to participate was refused by the Medical Directorate of the Misano circuit, which is responsible under Italian law. If Andrea had fallen again on her structurally weakened vertebra, it could have caused a severed spinal cord and paralysis, as happened to Wayne Rainey, precisely in Misano. The circuit's medical team did not want to take the risk. Iannone was obviously furious, and when he was told that the rest period for such an injury was 25 days, he promised that he would take part in the next Aragon GP in two weeks.
Ducati named Michele Pirro as starter in order to possibly score valuable points in the Team Championship, where the Ducati Team was joined in tied third place by the team Suzuki at Silverstone. Pirro, qualified directly into Q2 with the ninth time in free practice, therefore lost the benefit of his wild card and had to go through Q1. Although then with one less tire in Q2, he managed to take fifth time, 0.2 ahead of his teammate Andrea Dovizioso. It was not a first, because already last year Pirro qualified fifth in Misano, Iannone seventh and Dovizioso eighth.
“First of all I want to congratulate the guys on my team, because after Iannone, who I hope will have a speedy recovery, was declared unfit, they really outdid themselves today, estimated Michele. After FP3 I went from wild card to replacement rider and within two hours they had to move into the factory team pit and work on Andrea's two bikes. Despite this, we all did an excellent job and achieved a great result. I improved on my time from last year and am close to the best. Tomorrow will be a different story, but even if I don't take part in all the rounds of the World Championship, I'm starting at the front of the grid and my Desmosedici GP is working really well, so I'm confident for the race. »
Andrea Iannone was less happy: “ I'm unhappy with how everything went because this morning I felt like I could try to get back on the bike. I knew it was going to be difficult and maybe I couldn't continue, but I wanted to try either way. Unfortunately, I was stopped by the doctors' verdict before I could try. Obviously I'm very disappointed, because it's our home race and I had high expectations. Anyway, I want to say hello and thank you to all my fans for the support they have shown me and I hope to be able to give them even more good results in the next races. »
