MotoGP Rider of the Year: 3rd - Andrea Dovizioso

After another epic season of racing, MCN’s sports team of Michael Guy (Sports Editor), Simon Patterson (MotoGP Reporter) and Oli Rushby (Superbike Reporter) sat down to discuss who impressed them the most in each race series we cover to establish MCN’s top five riders in each category.

And with this year’s MotoGP championship another close-fought affair every weekend even as Marc Marquez romped to title victory, it wasn’t an easy call to decide who deserved what spot in our top five riders of the year in the class. Here’s what we think –  but feel free to disagree with us in the comments!

Third: Andrea Dovizioso

When Andrea Dovizioso put together a title challenge in 2017, some thought that it was a one-off performance from the Italian. But he backed it up again in 2018 with another impressive season, taking four wins en route to second in the championship again.

 And while he built up momentum last season to be strong in the second half of the year, this season he came out of the gates blazing, taking a win at the first race of the season in Qatar and going on to be a consistent threat throughout the year.

However, a bad run of form in the first third of the year means that he wasn’t able to push Marc Marquez to the final round in Valencia like he did in the previous year. Despite that, though, he still managed to only miss the podium twice in the final half of the season – an impressive record that shows that as the Ducati Desmosedici continues to improve, Dovi will just continue to get faster in 2019.