Andrea Dovizioso putting in 'double the amount of work' aboard RNF Yamaha
An 11th place finish on day-one of Mandalika MotoGP is as close as Dovizioso has come to any top ten appearance this season.
With just over two minutes remaining of an enthralling FP2 session, Dovizioso managed to slot into fifth place behind factory Yamaha riders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli, who ended the day 1-2.
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However, a series of late time attacks saw the RNF Yamaha rider pushed out of the top ten by nearly two tenths, leaving the experienced Italian to confess that the amount of work needed to extract the performance wanted is proving mightily difficult.
The Italian said: "I still have to work a lot on learning how to ride the bike the correct way and until I manage to do that correctly, I have to basically put in double the amount of work.
"I still need some improvement and especially, when the grip is like this. I did a different strategy and started with the soft tyre, but it didn’t work.
"I managed to do some laps behind Franky (Morbidelli), which was very important to see how the bike is ridden correctly.
"The condition of the track was a bit better than during the test, there is still a line and you have to be really careful, when you leave it. This is going to be difficult for the race."
For team-mate Darryn Binder, the South African once again found himself towards the back of the field as only Luca Marini finished behind him.
With limited experience, not only on MotoGP machinery, but also on wet tyres, Binder alluded to struggling for confidence in the tricky conditions.
"This morning was quite difficult," said Binder. "The conditions have been a bit mixed at the beginning of the session. I did a couple of laps on the wets, stopped, put in the slicks, but I just struggled to gain enough confidence to cross the wet patches.
"With this big bike and so much power every time you touch the wet patches and it moves, I get a little bit nervous, so I struggled to get comfortable this morning.
"Anyway, it was a learning experience nonetheless. FP2 was quite good. We really tried to improve a lot.
"I felt quite good and felt that the tyres are different from the test. The grip on the tyre seems to be less than what we had at the test.
"So I was just really trying to understand that and trying to make changes to improve. I have a better understanding now after FP2 and I think we can work on some things for tomorrow.
"I still need to learn how to really push 100% on the first lap with a new tyre to get the absolute maximum. Overall, I’m quite happy with how things went. Hopefully we can improve tomorrow if the weather stays stable."
