Andrea Dovizioso Interview: On Struggling With Yamaha, Battles With Marc Marquez, The Undaunted Documentary, And The Future
Neil Morrison on Thu, 2022-09-01 00:05
As he approaches the 346th and final Grand Prix of a storied career, Andrea Dovizoso gives his impressions on the current state of MotoGP, a 21-year career and what the future holds.
There’s no dressing it up. His latest – and last – career foray has not gone to plan for Andrea Dovizioso. The veteran Italian, who has racked up a world championship and 15 premier class wins across a decorated 21-year stay in the grand prix paddock, had visions of fighting for race wins and more when he returned during a career sabbatical last September.
Instead, the 36-year old has been reduced to a bit-part player in a series where he used to have a leading role. His struggles aboard the 2022 RNF Yamaha M1 have been so bad that he’s claimed just eleven points from the first 13 races. After failing to confirm he’d complete the full season before the summer break, it was announced Dovizioso would call time on his career six races early, after competing at Misano – his home GP.
It’s been tough at times to watch the figure that pushed Marc Marquez hardest between 2017 and 2019 struggle in such fashion. Across the past six months, there have been no real signs of progress, and only a few fleeting moments when he claims to have felt comfortable, more natural aboard a bike which requires a polar opposite riding technique to Ducati’s Desmosedici machinery, which he commanded for eight years. Prior to his final race, Dovizioso had failed to finish closer than 20 seconds to the race winner – an eon to a man of his pedigree.
But long before our conversation on the eve of the Dutch TT, Dovizioso had come to accept he would never be capable of riding Yamaha’s particular ’22 M1 like current championship leader Fabio Quartararo. “You can’t ride in an instinctive way. It’s becoming a more irrational way to ride, and that’s not so good. But it’s the reality. You can’t change that enough,” he told Motomatters.
Yet rather than feel bitterness or anger at the situation, the 2004 125cc World Champion is philosophical. In a chat that covered the current state of MotoGP, the finest achievement of his career, and the real reasons for making that documentary while at Ducati, Dovizioso gives the kind of insight that singled him out as one of the sport’s most intelligent figures, as well as fastest riders.
Q: Can you still take satisfaction or enjoyment from a season when the results aren’t there?
Andrea Dovizioso: On one side I think everything you do, no matter which way it ends, is always experience. You have to try to always take – it’s not about positives – experience. When you are not in the situation you want, a lot of important things happen which are very important for your life, to understand what you want, what you don’t want, what you have to do in a different way. In the end every experience is an experience. Even if it’s not good, you have to take experience from it. That means trying to analyze and understand. Those things. For sure, this is not what I want – 100 percent. But if you start to look a lot at careers of top riders, many times similar situations happen. I think there is always a reason why. Nobody has the situation under control. Nobody wants it, but in the end it’s normal.
Q: How are you measuring progress this year? Do you look at results and lap times? Or is it about feeling? Because I don’t recall you ever saying you felt truly comfortable on the bike this year.
AD: For me, from when it became clear why I couldn’t be that fast with the Yamaha now, you can’t ride in an instinctive way. You know exactly why you are not competitive in some areas. It’s becoming a more irrational way to ride, and that’s not so good. But it’s the reality. You can’t change that enough.
Q: Is Yamaha – the bike, the company and how it operates – in 2022 in any way comparable to what you experienced when you were a satellite rider at Tech3 in 2012?
AD: I think it’s exactly the same – very, very similar almost everywhere. The difference is MotoGP changed in the way manufacturers look at the bike and develop the bike. In this moment just Yamaha is still able to achieve important results. But I think this happened because the relationship between Fabio and Yamaha is so special. They are able to fight and win the title, not because the pace of the bike is good enough for most of the riders.
It’s a bit unusual what happened between Fabio and Yamaha, and what they were capable of doing last year and this year. That’s even more strange than (what is happening) with all the other riders because there is important development, especially the European manufacturers have become more aggressive, stronger and they have good money to invest to try and make a better bike. They invest a lot in former riders, so if you look in the last five or six years, apart from who won the title, MotoGP changed a lot. The Japanese bikes are not that much better like in the past.
Q: You have been team-mates with Stoner, Pedrosa, Lorenzo… Could you say from what you see in Quartararo’s riding, he’s currently riding on a similar level?
AD: Yeah. To speak about level and top riders, for sure because he’s doing something crazy. When you win, you win. That’s it. So, for sure. But to compare different riders in a different moment is difficult and not that easy to say.
Q: You tested the Aprilia three times last year. Did you have any inclination then and through those tests that the bike and factory could become such consistent contenders this year?
AD: Immediately when I tried the bike last year, I explained the base of the bike is really good. That is very important because when you have a good base, if you work in the right way, it’s not that difficult to arrive with (good) results. At the end, what Aleix and Aprilia are doing now is something special.
I think it’s a good example like what Marc did with Honda, what Fabio’s doing with Yamaha, what I was able to do with Ducati for a long time… I mean, it’s about your riding style being good for the characteristics of the bike, and year by year you can just use that potential more. You get to use that bike and you don’t have to think too much when you ride because you’re riding in an instinctive way. You don’t have to adapt that much to the bike to use its potential. Every rider work on that constantly. But the amount of work you have to do in that way is not that much because there is a connection.
Q: So this shows factories and teams should be more patient with riders?
AD: For sure. Even more now. Even more now, for sure.
Q: Changing tack a little, what would you rate as the best achievement of your career?
AD: Well, 2017 was crazy. When you don’t expect a really good season and you are able to win six races in MotoGP in the same year, that’s something big. That season, I finished second and the championship finished in the last race, even if we couldn’t really fight against Marc in the last race. I didn’t feel I lost the championship in Valencia. I was really happy about that season. That was the nicest for sure, even if in 2018 I was a bit faster. In 2017, it was really nice.
Q: Particularly as you had brought Ducati back from a fairly low level when you joined in 2013…
AD: Yeah, that’s nice. When you complain a lot and you’re a lot of seconds behind at the beginning and there is no way to be competitive, but year by year, when nobody had a different option. Ducati didn’t really have a different option. I didn’t really have a different option. That gave us the possibility to work so hard to try and arrive at that level. When you are able to achieve that, it’s something big, deep, that came from years and years of working from home, during the weekend, during the races with a lot of risk… That was nice for sure.
Q: I interviewed you at the start of 2017 and remember you voiced frustration that some of your prior performances at Ducati weren’t recognized as special, just because you didn’t win. Five years on, do you feel your achievements have been recognized?
AD: Well, when you don’t make a good result it’s so easy to understand what the people think. This year has been like that. And it’s been so nice to see a lot of fans in every country cheer for you because the battles between me and Marc and battling for the championship for three years remain as something to them. I think it was very emotional for everybody who was with me or against me. Everybody wants that.
I think the MotoGP we’re living now is a bit different. If Pecco or Fabio wins, normally it’s not with a battle. And that’s not so nice. In the way we fought, we battled, it was something… not unusual, because it happened in the past, but something nice. Everybody wants to see that. And this remains. That’s good. To be recognized as one of the best in the championship? No, I don’t think so. One of the good riders, yes. But that’s not too important.
Q: You’re a private guy. We never hear much about you or your life away from the track. So what was the idea behind filming ‘Undaunted’, the documentary on your 2019 season(link is external)?
AD: That was very nice. At the end, I’m really happy with what we did. It was the first real one. Now a lot of riders are doing that. It was private, but not that private. That was what I wanted. I have a big passion for motocross. That kind of video, you can see every day from the riders there. They can do that. You don’t need any permission. As a passionate person, it’s what you want to see more than what you actually see during the race day.
I wanted to create some of that situation. It’s what we did. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to do more, but we didn’t have the experience and it was difficult to find the time to do more. I think it was a really nice documentary because we showed something more than the normal things. But it was private, with what I don’t like to show. For sure, we’re living in a world now where showing personal things works. But I don’t want to play with what the world is asking now. I don’t need that and I don’t want that. I want to keep what I believe private.
Q: We saw certain members of the Ducati team putting you under incredible pressure in that documentary. Was that a normal situation from your experience?
AD: Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest reasons why a lot of really fast riders retire very early. The pressure, year by year, becomes heavier and heavier. It’s not easier. The reality becomes heavier for everybody. That is one reason. What we showed in the documentary is less than half of the reality. As you know, every documentary needs the permission of everybody! [Laughs] A lot of very aggressive things happened that nobody saw, that nobody knows. But this is normal.
Q: Will we ever see these scenes that were left out of the final cut?
AD: No! I can’t, we can’t. But this is OK, this is normal. But, you know, the reality is always different to what you see.
Q: You made your debut as a 16-year old in the 125cc class in 2001, 21 years ago. What is the biggest change you’ve seen in this paddock in that time?
AD: What changed a lot is the way you have to ride the MotoGP bike. if I just compare 2008, my first year in MotoGP, to now, the bike changed a lot. The way the rider has to ride is changing a lot. In the way you have to work during the weekend changed a lot. The kind of people you have to work with changed a lot. That is a huge change. I don’t want to say it’s bad like a very old person! It’s always like that. But you have to ride in a different way.
It’s the same for everybody, so it’s OK. But you are always less under control about most of the things on the bike. But in the past, it was different. That’s why in the past there were always the same riders on top. More or less, you found a way to be competitive with a manufacturer, so every situation you would be competitive. Now, no. Now you are related a bit more to the technical side. If you are not adapting 100% to the technical part of the bike, you are not able to use the potential. Half a second and you’re at the back of the group. That is the change of MotoGP. I’m not complaining but this is the reason why this happened.
Q: Can you maintain perspective because of this. Sure, the results this season haven’t been good. But on certain occasions you’re less than a second off pole position…
AD: Yeah, but at the end what counts is to be in a better position. If you are here, there is no doubt everybody is fast, everybody is competitive. It doesn’t matter if you’re 36 years old or 20. This is not the question. But what is important is the position. If you’re not there, you’re not there and that’s it.
Q: Another general question: who was the toughest rider you came up against?
AD: Unfortunately, I can’t tell you just one. It depends also, for example, I can speak a lot about Marc because we fought for the championship. I can’t speak in the same way as Valentino because, OK, I fought a lot of years against Valentino, but his best years were before me. So, it’s not fair to say, ‘Marc is the strongest.’ Maybe he is. But I fought against Marc in his best moment. I didn’t fight against Valentino in his best moment. That’s the change.
But for sure, if we are speaking about Marc… in these days, there was Marc, Jorge, Dani, Casey, Valentino. You can’t beat them. On ‘their’ days, you can’t beat them. They can beat everybody. It’s difficult when you fight with them.
Q: I always found it interesting how you and Marc remained so cordial after some really intense fights. Was there ever a time when you felt it would turn into a rivalry with bad feeling?
AD: From the beginning, I approached the battle with him with that mentality. I already knew he was like that. I mean, I’m studying the other riders a lot. So, I knew every detail from him. I wasn’t surprised when I started to battle with him, to see his aggression. I already knew this and that’s why I was able to beat him more than one time because I was approaching him with a strategy. I was thinking a lot about what I could do; it wasn’t just about trying to beat him in a certain corner.
Nothing happened between us for two reasons. First, because I approached the battle in a different way to all the other riders. Second, because fortunately we were a bit lucky. We were battling hard and something bad never happened – close to the limit, but not bad enough to start fighting. So, this is the reason why we always kept a relaxed relationship.
Q: So you went out of your way to avoid being overly aggressive with him?
AD: No. The point is if you know the best point of the competitor, you can’t fight in the same point. Where most other riders try to do that and lose. In my opinion, that’s not smart.
Q: How do you see your future?
AD: I’m in a transition mood! I have a really clear idea of one project but still it’s not there. Until it’s not there, it’s done, you can’t be sure. About working or having some position in this world, at this moment I’m a bit stuck because I think I can have more than one important position. I have a lot of experience. But in this moment, after 20 years, and living what I’m living, at this moment I don’t have that fire inside of me to do something.
I’m receiving a lot of proposals but in this moment I think I need a bit of time to not work in this world. When you decide to do something, you need to believe it. You have to feel it. You have to feel something inside, that you’re doing something because you want to do it. So I don’t know.
Q: So, a break for a bit and then assess from there?
AD: I’m completely open. From an old 36-year-old I know that every time you say, ‘No, I’m never going to do that’, it happens! [Laughs] So, I don’t want to say, ‘No, I’ll never do that’ because year by year life changes, especially from a rider’s side, especially when you do really important things for 20 years and everything is around this. You have your idea.
But when that changes, it’s a big change. So, you can’t really know all the details and if something will change in your mind. Everything is possible. Everything! Or I will come back to race after I am 40… Never say never! [Laughs]