Andrea Dovizioso has hailed his Malaysian Grand Prix weekend as ‘perfect’ after clinching a crucial sixth win of 2017 in a wet Sepang race to keep his MotoGP title hopes alive.
The Italian came into the Sepang weekend 33 points adrift of standings leader Marc Marquez, but a win for Dovizioso and a fourth–place finish for the Honda rider means the championship battle will go down to the final round in Valencia, with 21 points separating the pair.
Dovizioso topped both Friday practice sessions, which were run in dry and wet conditions, and was confident of being able to challenge for the victory whatever the weather.
The Ducati rider took his time to get into a rhythm as grip proved to be at a premium, and admits he had to dig deep to beat team–mate Jorge Lorenzo – who was given a coded message to let Dovizioso through, but did not see it.
“We did a perfect weekend,” claimed Dovizioso.
“We was so fast from the practice in any condition, and it’s very difficult to be strong and fast in every practice and in both conditions.
“The grip was so bad in the race, worse than the practice, maybe because there was a lot of rubber on the ground from the races of Moto2 and Moto3.
“At the beginning I take time to become smooth again, because I wasn’t so comfortable like in the practice.
“Fortunately, nobody pushed me from behind and I take time to try to understand and see my positive point, improve a little bit the negative point.
“I was able to catch Jorge, and today he was really fast, so I have to be very concentrate to be with him.”
Dovizioso concedes his bid to become world champion in Valencia will be difficult due to the 21–point deficit he holds, as well as the fact that the Ricardo Tormo track suits Marquez and the Honda more than it does the Ducati.
However, he remains upbeat as he reveals he did not expect to be as competitive as he was at Sepang.
“I didn’t expect to be that competitive this weekend, and many weekends this year nobody expect us to be there,” he said.
“So we have to keep thinking positive like before we came here and try to be fast in the beginning.
“After that we can think about strategy, but we can’t make a strategy, so we just have to try to win.
“We know Valencia is not the best for us, and especially Marc is really strong (there). But this year everything can happen during the weekend, you never know about the weather.
“We know its difficult, but we are relaxed. We were relaxed before this weekend, and go into Valencia in a relaxed way and try to do the maximum.”
