Dovi '22

I would like to see Dovi as regularly being in the mix for podiums but I'm not getting my hopes up. With 8 Ducs on the grid it's going to be tough for Fabio and Frankie as well. As for Binder, I just hope he doesn't kill anyone.

warthog1 said:

How do we reckon he is likely to go?
Hard to see him having the outright speed of Fabio on the same bike.
Good that he will now have the current year bike though.
He is smart and can set a bike up.
He might continue to get stronger through the year and at the end of races.
I am interested to see how he goes anyway.

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I personally don't see him going all that great. I think his success was somewhat of a perfect storm, not to take away from his obvious talent as a rider. I think Dovi's strengths and the Ducati's strengths complimented each other very well. I think Jorge in his wins showed how dominant the Ducati could be in the hands of a truly great rider. That is, he didn't need to slow the race down and win as slowly as possible. The Yamahas strengths are much different and given his age I don't see him having a whole heap of success on the bike.

I would be happy to be proven wrong though.

warthog1 said:

How do we reckon he is likely to go?
Hard to see him having the outright speed of Fabio on the same bike.
Good that he will now have the current year bike though.
He is smart and can set a bike up.
He might continue to get stronger through the year and at the end of races.
I am interested to see how he goes anyway.

Click to expand...

Is he on the same bike though? I know he has a direct Yamaha contract, but I thought both RZF or whatever they are called Yamaha's are year old units a la Tech 3 used to have?

I don't see him doing much just pike p4p1 said. I personally think he is overrated due to a few fluke years on the Ducati. Plus he's 35 now and he doesn't have the dominant traits of the GPxx to fall back on.

I know I'm going to get scorned for my post, but lets look at the facts. He had 3 seasons on a factory Honda and was resoundingly beaten by his team mate in both of those, and in the 3rd he got trounced by Stoner who won the title in his first season on the thing. Yes Dovi was on a mandatory 3rd bike that Honda didn't want him on and likely wasn't developed, but the previous two seasons show it wouldn't have been any different if he had an equal bike.

The only reason Iannonne didn't keep the Ducati seat over him was he torpedoed them both out at Argentina 2016, and he only ever won dogfights with Marquez when he could use the advantages of the bike. In 2020 the title was his for the taking and he choked

Dovi himself admitted there are skills needed to ride a Yamaha which are non-intuitive for him. This may well be a show stopper. Some visits to the top ten is all I'd expect.