Dovi wasn't worried about spoiler protest

Andrea Dovizioso insists he wasn't concerned by the Qatar post-race protest filed by four rival teams against Ducati's swingarm spoiler.

The MotoGP Court of Appeal only confirmed Dovizioso's victory on Tuesday evening, over two weeks after the race had finished.

But the Italian never felt his 25 points were at risk and believes the worst-case scenario was that the part might not be allowed in future (however team boss Gigi Dall’Ignalater stated Dovi would indeed have been disqualified if the appeal had been lost!)

Instead, the Court of Appeal not only confirmed the Qatar results but rejected a request to ban Ducati's tyre cooling device.

"I wasn't worried about the points. In the worst case, they [the Court of Appeal] didn't give us the possibility to use that piece in future," he said.

"But also about that, I wasn't too worried because we only put that piece on the bike [for the first time] in the warm-up and we don't have a lot of data about that piece.

"When you use something it's because [it does] something interesting, but still we don’t have a lot of data about that.

"But the victory was the victory. We did a really good weekend and I was happy to have a good feeling with the bike. It was a bit of a strange race, quite slow. But I wanted to do that strategy and it paid off."

Turning to this weekend's Argentine round, where the GP19 riders - Dovizioso, factory team-mate Danilo Petrucci and Pramac's Jack Miller - are now free to use the rear-tyre cooling device again if they wish, Dovizioso said:

"I expect to be more competitive this year than last year because last year I was struggling a lot. But Argentina is a strange race, we have to see the [track and weather] condition tomorrow because normally during practice it is difficult to work with the tyres, the lines, the set-up.

"It's still too early to understand about the championship because it looks like a lot of competitors are in a good situation, so everything can happen.

"I don't think Argentina will show the reality for the season, but I expect Suzuki and Honda to be really competitive here. For sure also Yamaha about the speed, they will be very competitive.

"So it will be difficult to make a good result, but our goal is the points. We have to bring the maximum."

Dovizioso finished sixth in Argentina last season, when Miller was the lead Ducati in fourth place (from pole position) on the damp track.