Andrea Dovizioso left the championship after leaving Ducati in favor of the new generation embodied by Pecco Bagnaia and Jack Miller, and in 2022 his contract was formalized within the Yamaha RNF satellite team.
Despite a complicated adaptation to a bike radically different from the Desmosedici, the Italian hoped to be able to return to the top positions with the same factory machine that Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli in the official team, and that he has inherited this year.
It is clear that the road to adapt to the M1 will be longer than expected, since it has a prototype that has not progressed “enough” during the winter, unlike other competitors, such as Honda, for example.
With the exception of rookie Darryn Binder, all Yamaha riders live in a situation with common problems.
“Fabio [Quartararo] won the title and he manages to use his full potential. Morbidelli didn’t really race last year and he still needs to understand [the bike], so he tries to stay calm and work,” Andrea Dovizioso told the gates of the first race of the year.
“I have to adapt to a completely different bike than the one I have used for the last eight years, and it has felt very good, but also limited.
From Andrea Dovizioso’s point of view, grip is the biggest concern for everyone, since “depending on the driving and the rider it can be more or less”.
Despite the important advances in braking , which had reassured the Italian a bit in Mandalika, Dovizioso still feels that he lacks speed and doesn’t feel entirely “at ease”.
At the start of the first Grand Prix of the season, the doubt about his competitiveness is, therefore, more present than ever in the #4’s mind.
“If it was not competitive throughout the season it could become heavy. That is what I would like to avoid because I am not used to it and I would not want it. In my opinion, in MotoGP it is not fun to live like this, especially after so many years in which I’ve always been more or less competitive.”
The Italian assures that what “weighs” him the most is that he cannot make the most of “the positive aspects of being a MotoGP rider”.
“Not being the center of attention is great. It’s not something I feel bad about at all,” she clarified. “What I don’t like is that I would like to be competitive and I don’t have the situation under control, and therefore I am not as competitive as I would like to be.”
“But not being considered a title contender at the moment, rightly so, is not a problem at all,” the Italian concluded.
