The Ducati Team are back on Italian soil again for the 13th round of the 2014 MotoGP™ World Championship, with Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow hoping to impress the home crowd this weekend.

The Gran Premio TIM di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini takes place at Misano, situated just one hour away from the Ducati factory at Borgo Panigale. Indeed, Ducati recently tested at the circuit and their riders are hoping that will help them to achieve a good lap time at the track.

Dovizioso produced another good performance at Silverstone, in which he battled for the podium with Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa right until the very end, finishing the race less than ten seconds behind winner Marquez. The Forlimpopoli-born rider - however - has never managed to step onto the podium in the six times he has raced at Misano in MotoGP since 2008, his best result being fourth place in 2009, 2010 and 2012.

“Even though I won my first race there on big bikes, Misano is not one of my favourite circuits, but this Grand Prix is also our second ‘home race’, so I’m sure the fans will be an extra help,” Dovizioso said. “It will be not easy to confirm our Silverstone performance, but we had the opportunity to do a good test at Misano before we went to the UK, so we are going there in an optimistic mood.”

Crutchlow has only raced in the San Marino round three times, and his best result was sixth place last year.

“I’m looking forward to Misano,” commented the Englishman. “We had a good test there a couple of weeks ago and I felt we found some positives so hopefully this will help for the race weekend. It’s another home of Ducati, and being in Italy we have many fans coming to the race so I look forward to improving on the Silverstone result and doing a good job with the team.”



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