Andrea Dovizioso will not finish the 2022 MotoGP season. Yamaha announced today that the Italian rider has decided to end his career at Misano, his hometown race (Dovizioso is from Forlì, about a block away. 70 km).
Official Yamaha test driver Cal Crutchlow will replace Dovizioso on the RNF WithU Yamaha team for the remainder of the 2022 season.
This decision is not surprising. Dovizioso joined Yamaha after a forced sabbatical when he was dropped from the Ducati team at the end of the 2020 season alongside Danilo Petrucci, to make way for Pecco Bagnaia and Jack Miller.
However, even though Dovizioso spent a season on the Tech3 Yamaha satellite in 2012, the Italian never really fell in love with the M1, and struggled to make this bike the right fit for him. .
There were rumors in June that Dovizioso was considering ending his career after the summer break, which he half-heartedly denied when asked in Barcelona. Will you be in Silverstone? he was asked. “I think so,” he replied.
But his problems with Yamaha mean he doesn’t enjoy racing at all. “You can’t enjoy when you’re in the back,” Dovizioso said after Barcelona. He just goes on and on and does what he can to get it done, instead of trying to figure out how to compete.
“This year every race has been a nightmare for me. I survived. It’s not about strategizing and deciding something, because I have no control over my pace. And when you’re behind now MotoGP has been bad at it, because it affects a lot the way the ride, the behavior of the tires, especially the front. So it’s tough in the back.”
Thus ended a long and illustrious career of Andrea Dovizioso. Even though he’s only won a single world championship – the 125cc title in 2004 – he’s always been a contender.
He finished second in the 250cc championship in 2006 and 2007, and placed second behind Marc Marquez for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019. He has won 15 MotoGP races and won 62 MotoGP podiums, and a total of 103 podiums across all three classrooms.
Above all, Dovizioso is appreciated for its analytical insight. No one can and is willing to explain the nuances and ingenuity of riding and racing a MotoGP bike like Andrea Dovizioso after Casey Stoner retired. He has a deep understanding of what a motorcycle can and should do, and is able to explain it in a clear and simple way to journalists with a certain understanding of racing.
What Dovizioso does next is unknown, but it looks like it will almost certainly be in motocross, not MotoGP. Motocross has always been Dovizioso’s biggest passion, and he trains and races MX whenever he gets the chance.
This has never been clearer than when Adam Wheeler, owner of the digital magazine On Track Off Road and MXGP experts appeared at MotoGP races.
Dovizioso usually avoids trying to converse informally with journalists once his official communication duties are complete, but when Adam shows up, Dovizioso will forewarn him and toast him on the latest developments in the MXGP paddock.
Source: Yamaha Racing
