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Dovi’s lack of agility

The lingering delay in Ducati solving a lack of corner speed is threatening the Desmosedici’s status as the primary threat to Honda in the MotoGP world championship. And it is not just Marquez and Honda delivering the reality check, but the emergence of Spanish speedster Alex Rins aboard a fast and agile Suzuki.

Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso now ranks the Suzuki as the benchmark bike in corner speed and Rins a title contender. His concerns were raised when he had no response to the charge by Rins from ninth to second in the Spanish GP.

“Suzuki in the turning is better than all the other bikes and when Rins passed me his speed in the middle of the corner was amazing,” Dovizioso said. “Maybe on the hard braking they are not so strong, have some limit, but when a big talent rides a bike it is always difficult to see a bad point.

“The race showed the reality that our limit in fast corners is still too big.

Dovizioso’s fourth place confirmed on Ducati’s bad days, it misses the podium, a crucial weakness in a championship campaign.

“Marc is strong to fight for the victory or podium in every race even when we are in a bad track for him,” Dovizioso said. “This is the part where I am not too happy. When we are struggling we make fourth, it is good but not good enough.

It is now more than three years (February 2016) since Ducati’s only world champion, and then test rider, Casey Stoner nominated fixing mid-corner turning as the main priority.

By Colin Young

Dovizioso, Spanish MotoGP 2019