While Marc Marquez runs away with the 2016 MotoGP title, spare a thought for Andrea Dovisioso, the unluckiest man in MotoGP.
He seems to have a magnetic attraction for crashing motorcycles, having been skittled out of a pair of podium places in two out of the three races run this year.
#DP26 and #AD04 down at turn one as Pedrosa loses the front!
A hard hit but both OK, Pedrosa rejoins. #AmericasGP pic.twitter.com/lytSPz16kb
— MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) April 10, 2016
Dovi, a friendly, casual guy off the bike but fierce competitor when the visor clicks down, has been around along time – he beat Casey Stoner to a 125cc title when the pair were teenagers and there were still two-strokes in the paddock – so it’s not the first run of bad luck the likeable Italian has experienced (having to threaten Honda with legal action when they tried to dump him from the Repsol Team with a year left on his contract wouldn’t have felt great), but for on-track misfortune not of his own making, 2016 is memorable for all the wrong reasons.
The season got off…
The second round, in South America, should have been a highlight for Dovisioso, with practice and qualifying going pretty well, and a podium a likely outcome – and it looked that way the whole race, but on the last corner he was taken out – by his team-mate, Andrea Iannone.
Dovi pushed his bike across the finish line to claim 14th place and two competition points, but that’s not much consolation compared to the podium and 20 points.
At the Circuit of the Americas it was Dovi who looked like he might be able to dice with Marquez, the master of the American track, but no-one was really going to deny the Repsol Honda man there.
But as the race worn on it was obvious Dovi wasn’t going to challenge Marquez or even Jorge Lorenzo, but he did look like he might be able to take third on the podium, but Danni Pedrosa was coming.
In his efforts to push, Dovi made a mistake and out-braked himself, messing up a turn. It was an error which should have cost him just a fraction of a second but it combined with a much bigger mistake to cost him the race.
Pedrosa, who was trying to catch Dovisioso, lost control under brakes into the same corner and lost the front-end, and a fraction of a second later his RC213V T-boned Dovisioso. He wouldn’t have seen it coming, and Pedrosa – who had separated from his machine when it went down – rushed straight over to Dovisioso to make sure he was OK and to apologise, which he did again in the pits later.
“I gained positions and was in a very good group, and I think we could have fought with Lorenzo for second place; the pace we had was much better than in practice.
“Unfortunately, I made a small mistake, losing the front end under braking when I was still turning into the corner.
“I lost control and tried to save the crash, but I ended up going down and taking Dovizioso with me.
“It’s a shame to have finished the race in that way, and I feel especially bad for Andrea and want to apologise to him,” Pedrosa said after the race.
It certainly looked like Pedrosa may have been concentrating on Dovisioso’s line and when Dovi outbraked himself, he ran wide but Pedrosa’s mistake ended up compounding the problem. Dovi’s mistake was so small it shouldn’t have cost him a place in the race, let alone a crash, but that’s racing.
“I am really very disappointed because once again today I was unable to finish my race following a mistake by another rider, and losing two possible podiums out of three is the hardest thing to accept in view of the championship,” Dovizioso said.
2016 has been a year of crashes. Jack Miller and Jorge Lorenzo were among the crashers in South America, and the Aussie crashed again during practice for the USA race, forcing him to sit it out.
Valentino Rossi was also a faller in the USA, losing the front in a fast turn.
The jury is still out on changing to less-sophisticated electronics and the control tyres in the same year as to the causes of all the crashes in MotoGP this year, but it means the pack is a long way off title leader Marquez. Who would have predicted we’d be calling the young Spaniard Mr Consistency?
After three races Marquez leads the title chase by over 20 points, nearly a full race win ahead of his nearest rival. You would have gotten long odds on that before the season started and it’s long been a rule of thumb that people don’t lose titles from being more than a race win in front. Yes, it’s happened, but not often.
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