After the first five Grands Prix, and just before his national GP at Mugello, Andrea Dovizioso placed his Desmosedici in second position in the Championship, 8 points behind the RC213V of Marc Marquez. In the manufacturers' standings, Ducati is second, 11 points behind Honda. In the Teams' Championship, Ducati leads by a large margin with 33 points ahead of the Repsol Honda Team.
After the French Grand Prix, and before the Italian Grand Prix, we took stock with Davide Tardozzi, Team manager of the Ducati MotoGP team, and himself winner of the first race of the Superbike World Championships in Donington .
Davide, after the first five Grands Prix of the season, what is your assessment for Ducati?
“Our overall results are positive. We have achieved good results. It's true that we only won one race, but we showed three competitive drivers at Le Mans. Andrea Dovizioso is only 8 points away from Marc Máask.”
You are also first in the team standings, with a nice lead of 33 points over the Repsol Honda Team.
“The Teams' Championship shows that the Ducati team is very competitive. Danilo Petrucci has proven itself to be competitive, after we received a lot of criticism for choosing it over Jorge Lorenzo. But for now we have shown that we made the right choice.”
At the French Grand Prix where you place Dovizioso second, Petrucci third and Miller fourth, with the cool temperature, the management of the race Was it difficult?
“Yes, that's true, but our pilots showed that they were fully capable of handling this situation well. We are very happy with the attitude of our three drivers. They showed at Le Mans their ability to work well together.”
Isn't the fight between the Ducati riders likely to be favorable to Marc Márquez?
" No, I do not think so. For the moment, we do not have this problem in mind, it is not our concern.”
After racing at the start of the season on circuits that were sometimes not very favorable to the Desmosedici, are you happy that Dovizioso only arrived 8 points behind Márquez at Mugello, then at Barcelona, two circuits more favorable to Ducati?
" Yes, that is right. We will see that during the next races that we will compete in, but it is certain that in Mugello and in Barcelona we will have to do something more to try to beat M there.áask.”
Among the rookies, many thought last winter that Francesco Bagnaia would beat Fabio Quartararo, Miguel Oliveira and Joan Mir. But Bagnaia with 3 retirements in 5 races is quite far away. Do you think he will be able to restore the situation?
“Yes, we saw that bagnaia experienced a lot of problems during these races, and it is true that Quarterly managed to make a big difference thanks to his speed. But we are sure that for the end of the season Bagnaia will be there, and next year he will be very competitive. We believe a lot in this driver.”
Photos © Ducati Motor Holding spa
