The 2009 season has just ended and the 2010 season is already up and running. It has been a year in which the Italian rider Andrea Dovizioso has taken a qualitative leap in his sporting career by joining the ranks of the Repsol Honda Team, the HRC factory team. In spite of taking a victory this season – at the British Grand Prix, performance has not been what the rider expected. After clocking up the first few kilometres on the Repsol Honda RC212V 2010, and before starting the long winter away from the race track, the Repsol rider says goodbye to the year by analysing what has happened over the last few months.

After finishing this year as part of the Repsol Honda Team, how would you sum up the season?
“Obviously, this year’s results have not been what everybody expected, starting with me. I didn’t feel comfortable enough with the bike to battle with the front pack, and the problem is that we can’t make any significant changes to the bike during the season, so Honda focused on preparing next year’s bike. Unfortunately, I couldn’t up my speed during the year and sixth place in the championship is nowhere near my dream. It has been an important year for me, to learn with the future in mind, and I know that Honda is going to work hard. I’m sure that next year, although we have to make up lost ground, all of us will increase our performance.”

With more time to practice, do you think that you could have reduced the gap?
“It’s not that there wasn’t enough time to test, but that I didn’t feel comfortable with this bike. My feelings were worse than in 2008, and that was the problem. When you can’t adapt to the bike, you can’t achieve results until a significant change is made to the bike and they aren’t changes that you can make in the practices for a Grand Prix, adjusting a little here or there.”

After implementing the single tyre rule, do you think that it is a good measure, as regards the competition, not only for cutting costs?
“Yes, I think it’s good for everybody. I’m sure that those who already used Bridgestone had a good experience and knew the characteristics of the tyres better. It wasn’t so easy for us; it wasn’t the best situation, but the tyres work well and I think it’s a good rule.”

An important moment was the switch to Öhlins. How would you rate the change of shock absorbers?
“I think that the way the Öhlins shock absorbers work is very good, but obviously we have to adapt. We have to improve the feeling with the rear shock absorbers because these are completely different to the Showa ones, which like the Öhlins have their good points and their bad. I think we’ve got a lot of room to improve with the Öhlins, especially with next year’s bike, on which every movement, the way in which the shock absorbers work, will be better.”

Throughout the season, you’ve had problems entering turns. Do you think that you are going in the right direction with the new chassis?
“Yes, because although everything is not fixed, there has been a change. The difference hasn’t been significant enough, but the direction is the right direction. We’ll have to continue working on it for Malaysia, and also on the engine, to have better control of the bike.”

Given the performance of the other manufacturers, where would Honda have to work more over these few months without competition?
“It’s hard to say, but I don’t think we have a big problem that we can pinpoint and fix quickly, but we have to change several points.”

What do you think of having so few testing days?
“That’s really bad for us, because for a factory with so much potential to work and our need to improve as a whole, it doesn’t allow us to explore all of our possibilities. However, that’s how it is and we adapt our way of working to it.”

Looking back on the season, what were the best and worst moments of the year?
“The best was obviously the win at Donington Park, and the worst, I would say in Portugal; we had a lot of problems that weekend.”

This was your second year in MotoGP, your first in an official team, what are the main differences?
“There is a huge difference in all aspects. With a satellite team, you focus on using the full power of the bike, but in a factory team, you also have to think about how to improve it and that’s not easy.”

After these last few testing sessions, how is next season looking?
“I feel optimistic, and of course I think that it’ll be better than, for example, our last race in Valencia, but we have a lot of work ahead of us and lots of changes to make before the season starts, so we’ll have to wait. But I’m sure that the direction we have taken over these three is days is the right direction.”

And now holidays. Were you looking forward to taking a break? What will you do over the next few month?
“I’m happy to be able to spend time in my city with my friends and family. I haven’t got any trips planned, or anything like that; as we travel a lot during the year, so we’ll rest a little and start training hard to be on top form for the first tests in Sepang.”

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