Dovizioso, who had lined up on the grid with his GP14 set up for wet weather, returned to the pit-lane to change bikes after the sighting lap, as did most of the other top riders. Forced to start from the pit-lane exit, Dovizioso accidently left on the pit-lane speed limiter of his Desmosedici and this affected his start, making him lose time and several positions, so much so that the Italian rider finished the opening lap in 19th place.

In his recovery he found himself first having to battle with Aleix Espargaro for sixth place and then also with his team-mate Crutchlow for several laps, and in the end he had to yield one place to Pol Espargaro, thus terminating the race in eighth place.

“It was a difficult race in which unfortunately we were unable to make the best of the situation,” stated the Italian. “I made a mistake at the start, forgetting to switch off the speed limiter at the end of the pit lane, and so I lost several places, which immediately complicated everything. I began to recover, but the battle with Aleix slowed me even more and I also went off line on the wet part of the track, losing a few more seconds. Unfortunately I was not able to keep up a very fast pace, and it’s a pity because we could have brought home a better result in these conditions. But, still being fourth in the championship after the first half of the season is in any case really positive.”

It was also a hard-fought race for Crutchlow, who after working his way up from 17th, got past his fellow Ducati Team rider Dovizioso into seventh place, but in the final four laps had to relinquish three positions to Pol Espargaro, Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista. He took the chequered flag in tenth place.

The Englishman explained, “It was mayhem at the start, and in the pit lane I nearly got knocked off by Valentino Rossi but it was nobody’s fault, just one of those incidents, and in fact the start of the race was really exciting!”

“In any case we chose the wrong front tyre for sure: we should have gone with the harder one, but this is racing. The positives to take from the weekend are that we were more competitive in the race than in qualifying or practice and I made sure that we finished today. I was really disappointed in the last laps when I got passed by Pol Espargarò, Andrea and Bautista: I felt we had a good chance to finish in the seventh position but I couldn’t fight any more than I did and we were at the limit with the package today in these conditions.”



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