Andrea Dovizioso says the mistake he made at Turn 4 late in the MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix ultimately “helped” him to secure victory over Marc Marquez.
Dovizioso took the lead at the start of the 22-lap Losail encounter, holding first spot for much of the race before dropping to second behind Marc Marquez when he ran into Turn 4 too deep on the penultimate lap.
The Ducati rider would go on to beat Marquez by just 0.023 seconds after a dramatic last-lap duel, and said dropping behind the Honda allowed him to “understand” the condition of Marquez's tyres.
“At the end it helped me because I was able to understand his [Marquez] bad situation on the rear tyre,” Dovizioso explained.
“I stay in front for the entire race, so I couldn't know the positive and negative parts [of the Honda].
“So it showed me his bad points and my strategy was clear: I had to overtake him immediately and push because he didn't really have the same speed as me. And that's why I was able to win.”
Dovizioso says his final lap was “perfect”, as it pushed Marquez to the limit and forced him into the futile last-corner lunge he made.
“He was able to try again in the last corner, and he's so good at that. But at the end he did a mistake.
“I mean, only Marc in that situation is thinking about overtaking some riders. All the other riders, no.
“So I did a perfect lap to put him on the limit. But in the end you need to be ready for him in this battle because he is like this.”
Dovizioso ran a steady pace while leading in the first half in an attempt to preserve his tyres, and said the “key” to being able to push Marquez in the final laps was stopping Suzuki's Alex Rins from going “fast too soon” each time he took the lead.
“The strategy was really clear for me and really good. I stop Rins every time [he passed me] because he wanted to be fast too soon, and that was bad for the tyre and I was right.
“I stop him every time. Fortunately I have more power in the straight. So I lose a little bit in the middle of the corners because his speed in the middle of the corners is amazing.
“But I was able to overtake him every time and stop him and continue to save the tyre.
“That was the key to trying to put Marc on the limit in the last few laps. I'm so happy I was able to do that.”
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