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Andrea Dovizioso: one step at a time

In MotoGP

25 maggio 2009

Motorcycle racing is as much about brain as it is about brawn, always has been, always will be. But sometimes a rider comes along whose intelligent approach to the sport really stands out. Andrea Dovizioso is one such rider. He reminds one of 1980s legend Eddie Lawson, nicknamed ‘Steady Eddie’, who never tried to run before he could walk. Lawson did learn to run, of course. The Californian ended up winning four 500 World Championships, including the 1989 title for Honda.

Like Lawson and like current team-mate Dani Pedrosa, Dovizioso is an analytical rider with a precise and economical riding technique, which is exactly what’s required with the current breed of 800cc MotoGP bikes which demand riders to stay smooth for higher corner speeds.

Dovizioso joined the factory Repsol Honda team at the end of last season after completing his rookie MotoGP campaign with Scot Honda, so he is still building up to full speed. So far his career has followed the same step-by-step template used by most current MotoGP stars: from pocketbike (or minimoto) racing at an early age to sport production to 125 GP bikes to 250 GPs and finally to MotoGP. Dovizioso has met with success every step of the way, well, almost. Only once did the youngster try to run before he could walk, when he graduated from pocketbike to real motorcycles in 2000, on the eve of his 14th birthday.

“My first full-size motorcycle was a 125 Grand Prix bike, and it was a very traumatic experience,” says Dovizioso. “I was asked to race the bike in 2000 by Fiorenzo Caponera’s team because I was the fastest kid in pocketbike. But a GP bike is too big a jump from pocketbike because it isn’t easy to ride; it’s so difficult to use the engine because the rpm range is so narrow. I tested this Aprilia GP bike three times at Maggiore during the winter before the 2000 season, and each time I went very slow. In the end the team said I wasn’t fast enough to race.”

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