Dovizioso: We don’t have a lot of cards to play

Andrea Dovizioso admitted he does not “have a lot of cards” to play in Sunday’s MotoGP race at the Sachsenring, after the Italian endured a day to forget in Germany.

The 33-year old was outside the top ten in FP3, placed just 14th fastest in FP4 and was then demoted to third in the dying moments of Q1, losing a place in Q2 by 0.003s. As a result he starts Sunday’s race from 13th place.

“[It] is really bad to start in our position,” said Dovizioso, in desperate need of reducing championship leader Marc Marquez’s 44-point advantage.

“But when you’re struggling everything becomes more difficult, to do the lap time and use the best potential of the bike. Everybody is struggling a lot with the consumption for the race.

“Apart from that our speed in the middle of the corner is too slow. It’s difficult. We will see which strategy we can do but we don’t have a lot of cards to use in this moment.

“It’s difficult to understand our pace because in the afternoon we did a 22.4s with a used soft on the last lap. I don’t think that is bad if we compare with the riders riding with a used tyre.

“If you put a new tyre, especially in that situation, you can go one second faster so that is not the point. The situation is difficult because we don’t have any positive part of the race where we can be strong. There are some moments when we can be very close to the fastest.

“But anyway we lose and in some moments we can lose more. At the end of race it will be a problem so it’s difficult. If I use a lot the rear tyre to recover a lot of positions I will pay for that. It’s bad.

“But in the race something changes for me and some competitors. At this moment what we can do is stay calm and make the right decision about tyres. I think we don’t know which tyre is the best. It’s not clear.

“Tomorrow the condition will for sure be different to what we found in these two days. The right choice will be even harder.”

Were there any positives he could from Saturday? “It depends if you want to compare with what,” he said. “I think we are not that bad like the position show.

“But we are in the big group so I don’t think we are in the same situation as Assen. I think the first four riders have a different pace. Apart from them we are in a big group and everything can happen. To start from the back will not help.”