MotoGP: Mixed weekend for Ducati at Assen

Published: 01 July 2016

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The last round of the MotoGP championship at Assen saw a weekend of mixed fortunes for the factory Ducati squad as Andrea Iannone rallied well from last place on the gird to take strong points in fifth as his teammate Andrea Dovizioso crashed out podium contention.

Iannone started Sunday’s race from the back of the grid despite strong pace in qualifying as punishment for his Catalan incident with Jorge Lorenzo, but was able to make the most of the damp conditions to take a strong finish in Sunday’s race.

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“In MotoGP it’s never easy to recover from the back, but I am pleased with both of my starts; I managed to recover well and cross the line in fifth place. In the end the result was quite positive for us and we managed to bring home some important points.”

However, it wasn’t to be as lucky for Dovi, who crashed out of the lead only minutes after inheriting it from Valentino Rossi to score his fourth DNF from eight races.

“Obviously I am very disappointed because we had a great weekend and I was leading the first part of the race in very difficult conditions, but then too much rain started to fall and it was right to stop the race.

“What actually happened on the second start is that everyone fitted the soft rear tyre, which had a lot more grip but which created even more problems at the front, the reason for all the crashes yesterday and today.

“Valentino and I both knew that we were the fastest riders out there and we pushed ourselves on to be as fast as possible, but in the end we both made mistakes. There aren’t many excuses when you crash, because it means that you have made a mistake, but when there are so many crashes in two days in the wet it’s important to understand the reason why.”

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By Simon Patterson

MotoGP and road racing reporter, photographer, videographer