Australian GP at Phillip Island
Fourth place for Andrea Dovizioso while Cal Crutchlow crashes out from second on the last lap
Andrea Dovizioso finished fourth in the Australian Grand Prix, round 16 of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship, which took place today at the Phillip Island circuit. The Ducati Team rider scored a positive result after fighting with the Espargaro brothers, Smith and Bradl throughout for fifth and in the end, helped by some retirements, he was able to take fourth at the flag.
Cal Crutchlow was unlucky not to reach the chequered flag after his best race of the year. The Coventry man was holding on to a safe second place behind Rossi, when he lost the front of his Desmosedici GP14 at turn 4 of the final lap and had to retire. After a bad start, Cal was ninth at the end of lap 1, but had moved up to fourth by lap 6. He gained another place after Marquez crashed on lap 18 and then took Lorenzo on lap 23, but the final lap crash denied the British rider of a well-deserved podium.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 4th
“It was a really unusual race, and I can’t say that I am happy with this weekend because I was never really competitive. This experience will be useful for next year however: we must understand where and how we can improve. I’m pleased to finish fourth at the flag because scoring a result like this, with the pace that we had before the race, is in any case positive. Now we go to Malaysia and Sepang, which is a track I love, so we’ll try and do better.”
Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team #35) – DNF
“I’m absolutely gutted with today’s result. We didn’t deserve that. The first time I slowed throughout the whole race was on the last lap and the front tyre obviously cooled down. I chose the asymmetrical and this was always the risk that we took. It was just a shame that the only mistake I made was slowing down a bit and not carrying on pushing for the rest of the lap. It’s a disappointment to my team, because I believe they deserved it and I’m really sorry for that.”
Luigi Dall’Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager)
“We are obviously very disappointed. Cal did a really extraordinary race after his excellent qualifying run yesterday, showing that he has finally reached a good feeling with the GP14, and he would have thoroughly deserved the second place. Unfortunately that’s racing: what remains is consolation that we again today demonstrated the competitiveness of our Desmosedici and that in any case we scored an important fourth place with Dovizioso.”
