MotoGP: Rea rates the Ducati riders

MCN has recruited the help of double and reigning World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea for this year’s MotoGP preview, to get some real expert opinion from a man who’s not only at the top of his game but who’s also raced against and knows personally many of the MotoGP field.

To hear everything that he had to say about the field, pick up this week’s MCN complete with it’s free 32-page season guide!

Jorge Lorenzo

Ducati have definitely got something right, because they’ve come from being guys getting special dispensation in races just to try and make them competitive to where they are now, right there. I think going there, Jorge felt that he could make that final difference, but people like Dovi and Iannone are no mugs, so he’s got a huge task ahead of him.

But if he is the guy that turns Ducati around and makes them regular race winners, he’ll be a god. I like to see him do well, because he’s a good guy and we get on well together, but it’s a bike that works well at special tracks and struggles at others.

It could be a season where mentally and emotionally he needs to be strong. It’s realistic to hear him saying he can win races but not the championship, but at the same time I think that’s him playing things down a little bit. You can’t motivate yourself in the off season to think like that, especially when you’re one of the original aliens.

But even last year at Yamaha he’d turn it on so hard in some races, and then in others you’d wonder what’s happening to him. Mentally and emotionally is his biggest challenge for the year, but that package can be good.

Andrea Dovizioso

Dovi is just always there, isn’t he? He was one of the last to get a race win last year, and for me he should have been one of the first ones, because he’s just a workhorse. Since leaving Tech 3 and going to Ducati he’s gone from satellite to developing a bike and bringing a manufacturer to the front, and he deserves huge kudos for that. He won’t bother the top five come the end of the season, but he’ll always be there or thereabouts.