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Andrea Dovizioso will be the Ducati flagbearer in Japan. With Iannone still at home convalescing and Barbera standing in for him, the Forlì rider carries the fans' hopes at Motegi.
Andrea, are you surprised Iannone is not here?
“Honestly yes, but when you have certain problems only you can fully understand the situation. Andrea and I don't spend a lot of time together and to be honest I hadn't asked. He'll have his reasons for making this choice, whether right or wrong”.
Barbera will be in the garage…
“I know him well, having battled with him almost every year since I started in the world championship. Needless to say that he's fast. I'm interested to see how he'll go, satellite riders often think that with a factory bike everything changes. Sometimes it's an advantage, but not always”.
Let's talk about you and Motegi, is it a race you'd marked on the calendar?
“On paper we should have a good base from which to start and be able to be competitive. But it's still too early to say, because this year the tyres make the difference from track to track”.
On the subject of tyres, did Michelin tell you what happened at Aragon?
“I haven't spoken to them directly, but I know that they worked hard to understand what happened and have identified the problem”.
Pirro is testing the new Desmosedici at Valencia right now, will you call him?
“Definitely. I'm very pleased with the work being done by Ducati as we'll already have the new bike ready for the first Valencia test, which wasn't the case in recent years. This time we're not having to build a bike from scratch, but just need to improve certain aspects of it”.
The new bike won't have winglets, does this worry you?
“It will be a big change of course, not just for us as everyone's using them. But Dall'Igna is always on the case and I'm sure they're already working on this change, so I'm not worried”.
