Andrea Dovizioso recently announced his final retirement from MotoGP. Together with him we had hoped that it would not be minor, but the Yamaha YZF-M1 proves to be capable of great things this year only in the hands of Quartararo…
In 2004 Dovizioso became world champion in the 125cc class. A year later he took third place in the 250cc World Championship, in 2006 and 2007 he always finished second behind a certain Jorge Lorenzo. Dovizioso made his MotoGP debut in 2008 and immediately finished fifth in the overall standings as the best satellite rider. It made him make the switch to the Honda factory team in 2009.
In his three seasons with Repsol Honda, Dovi scored 15 podium finishes, including a first MotoGP win at Donington Park. The Italian switched to Monster Yamaha Tech 3 in 2012 and finished fourth that year with six podium finishes, which saw him move to the Factory Ducati Team in 2013. In 2016, Dovizioso recorded his first win in seven years in Malaysia.
From 2017, ‘Desmo Dovi’ found an extra gear. Three years in a row he fought for the MotoGP world title, which he unfortunately lost to Marc Márquez. When Dovizioso was swept aside for Miller and Bagnaia in 2020, he was not amused, the Italian seemed completely done with it. A nice illustration of this was that he had replaced ‘Undaunted’ with ‘Unemployed’ on the butt of his leather suit.
In mid-2021, Dovizioso reappeared in the paddock, this time in the saddle of a Yamaha as a replacement for Franco Morbidelli, who had been promoted to the factory team. Dovi could not break pots, but still signed a contract for 2022. Yamaha attached great importance to Dovi’s many years of (Ducati) know-how with a view to the further development of the M1. To no avail, unfortunately the story of the now 36-year-old Dovizioso ends here… but with 15 MotoGP victories to his name, he remains (for a while) one of the best riders of recent years…
PS: If you haven’t seen ‘Undaunted’, the 2019 Red Bull documentary about Dovizioso, take an hour and click here.
#Ciao #Dovi #Motokicx