Dovizioso: '20th is very bad, I lost completely the feeling', Binder crashes

Andrea Dovizioso says the good work from Friday at the Qatar MotoGP was completely undone by a lack of ‘feeling’ during qualifying. Darryn Binder suffers Q1 crash following engine cut-off issues in FP4.

Robert Jones

06 Mar 2022

Andrea Dovizioso, Qatar MotoGP, 5 March 2022
© Gold and Goose

RNF Yamaha riders Andrea Dovizioso and Darryn Binder will start the Qatar MotoGP from the final two rows after a disastrous qualifying.

Dovizioso could only manage 20th which is his worst ever qualifying in Qatar, as the three-time MotoGP runner-up lost ‘completely the feeling’ with his M1 during Q1.

It’s a starting position that will make a top ten result in today’s race a very longshot.

Speaking after qualifying a disappointed Dovizioso said: "I’m disappointed because today I completely lost the feeling with the bike, and also with regards to the condition of the track; the wind was quite strong in the opposite way than yesterday, only that is the difference.

"I was losing the feeling completely, I couldn’t be consistent. All the positive things I found yesterday, I couldn’t keep or improve my position with the bike.

"Tomorrow the track can be in a totally different condition, I can come back like yesterday with the right feeling and continue to work.

"To start 20th is very bad, everybody would have to manage the tyres, starting from the back is not the best situation."

For Dovizioso’s rookie team-mate Binder it was an even worse Saturday in Lusail, as problems on his first lap in FP4 resulted in the South African needing assistance to push his bike back down pit lane for the second consecutive day.

The issue with Binder's bike was related to the engine cutting off, before the former Moto3 rider suffered his first crash of the weekend during Q1.

Binder added: "Today started off quite well. I felt I made a good step forward in FP3. I managed to improve my time from last night, so I was really happy with that.

"In FP4 unfortunately, my bike stopped on the first lap, which wasn’t the greatest thing, because it disturbed our plan for the Qualifying.

"My first time in Qualifying was a bit crazy. You get two laps, coming in, changing the tyres and then another two and I didn’t have the best first two laps.

"Then unfortunately, when I changed the tyre for the second run, I was probably looking for a bit too much going into turn two and maybe I didn’t have the tyre up to temperature and I crashed.

"I’m disappointed how the Quali went, but I felt the step we made in FP3 was good and I think we can just pick up from there tomorrow, make the race and see what happens."