“The feeling wasn’t good enough,” Andrea Dovizioso doesn’t ‘regret’ choosing Yamaha over Aprilia
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Andrea Dovizioso
After parting with Ducati at the end of 2020 and spending the start of 2021 on the sidelines, Andrea Dovizioso was announced as a rider for the With U Yamaha MotoGP team. Before that Aprilia had convinced the fellow Italian rider to do a few MotoGP tests with them. During this period in time, the Noale based manufacturer was yet to score a top 5 finish with it’s challenger.
This in turn must have been one of the reasons why the Italian rider didn’t think about a future with Aprilia. Andrea Dovizioso completed a total of three tests with Aprilia. The first one being his debut for the team in Jerez, the second one being a wet test in Mugello and the third one carried out at Misano during the month of June. Having won a race in MotoGP 15 times, Aprilia was very keen to sign the Italian driver although he remained hesitant.
Although it all changed after Maverick Vinales had a fallout with Yamaha and was available for next season. This gave the Italian rider a chance to race a factory-spec M1 for the RNF team in 2022. Andrea Dovizioso further expressed his thoughts on why he didn’t think about signing a contract with Aprilia after looking at their interest in him. Here is what he had to say about it.
“I don’t feel I want to do this for next year,” Andrea Dovizioso said after refusing to sign a contract with Aprilia
“They wanted to do that [race] from the beginning,” Dovizioso said at Silverstone last weekend. “But I explained to them I was living (a different moment). I didn’t want to do even the test. But they convinced me because, especially Massimo, worked in the right way. Massimo is a really smart person. So we did that [tests]. But from the beginning I told them in this moment I don’t feel I want to do this [race] for next year,” the Italian rider stated.
“In my mind, I was convinced with Yamaha from that year. In my mind, ‘OK, if I have a factory contract, I really want to do it with Yamaha’. And the possibility came. So that was the only option,” he continued.
Aprilia is currently on a charge in the 2022 MotoGP season scoring 7 podiums and getting their first Win. Looking back, it is easy to say that racing for Aprilia would have been an easy option for Andrea Dovizioso although the rider says that doesn’t have any regrets. The With U Yamaha RNF rider will be retiring from the sport after his home grand prix.
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Varad Joshi
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