Dovizioso: Brno win proof of Ducati gains

Andrea Dovizioso says his long-awaited second victory for the year is evidence of Ducati’s improvements with his GP18 this season but accepts his earlier crashes in the campaign mean the MotoGP world championship picture remains ‘very bad’.

The Ducati rider has returned to winning ways for the first time since the 2018 opener in Qatar after seeing off team-mate Jorge Lorenzo and championship leader Marc Marquez for victory at Brno.

Dovizioso’s triumph sees him jump up to third place in the riders’ standings and trim the gap to Marquez down to 68 points, with Valentino Rossi still holding second place 19 points ahead of his fellow countryman after finishing fourth in the Czech Republic.

Dovizioso says his success in Brno maintains his confidence in the performance gains Ducati has found with its 2018 bike with a strong pace ‘every weekend’.

“If you study every weekend you can easily that our bike is better than last year,” Dovizioso said. “The point is that we have done three zeros so in the championship and that is very bad.

“In all these three of those races we were fighting for the podium so we lost a lot of points.

“I was feeling better and I was able to fight in a better way. I am not 100% happy, I think we still have to prepare the tyre in a better way but overall our bike is good.”

Dovizioso pinpointed a smoother and stronger acceleration with his Ducati allowing him to produce a quicker pace, while managing his tyre life, and with the second half of the 2018 campaign ahead he hopes to use the result to maintain his recent results turnaround.

MotoGP heads to Austria next weekend where Ducati has claimed back-to-back wins including the Italian’s victory 12 months ago at the Red Bull Ring.

“I believe what we changed during this weekend will effect a little bit the second part of the championship,” he said. “Our bike at this track is better because we have stronger acceleration that gives us the possibility to save the tyre and be fast.”