Dovizioso fastest, but 'fighting too much'

Andrea Dovizioso sits at the top of the free practice times after Friday’s opening day at the Thailand MotoGP round, but the Ducati rider was far from satisfied.

Dovizioso set the fastest lap in FP2 in the afternoon in 1m 31.090s, which left him only 0.031s ahead of Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales.

The Italian rider, second in the championship behind red-hot title favourite Marc Marquez, says a lack of grip is causing him big problems on the factory Ducati.

“For me, it is exactly the same as the test, the only difference is that we have a different tyre and the grip is less. This is normal, because the tyre we used in the test, we couldn’t (use) in the race,” he said.

“They changed the tyre and the lap time is lower at the moment. I expected to be a bit more competitive this morning and we were struggling. In the afternoon we did a step and I’m happy about that but sill I’m fighting on the track – I’m not smooth – and the grip is very low for everybody.”

Dovizioso feels strong in the first part of the Chang International Circuit, but the Italian says he has to fight the bike around the rest of the track in Buriram.

“The first part of the track for sure is good for our bike, but the second part, we struggle a lot and I’m moving too much in splits three and four; and the consumption is quite high at the moment for everybody, so still there is a big confusion for everybody,” Dovizioso said.

“We need to continue to work, not a lap of laps on the tyre, and Maverick (Vinales) did the lap time on the hard tyre, so still it is no so easy to understand the situation.

“The corners are very long, you are not able to touch the throttle, pick up and go; you have to make a lot of speed on entry and on exit and you have to keep a lot of angle and in this case, our bike is not the best.”