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Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) had a tough day at the office in Australia. Qualifying in P11 and then making an early mistake at Turn 1 after having moved forward, the Italian was dropped down to P20 and from there was forced to mount a serious fight back. With title rival Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) winning the race after a brawl at the front, it left ‘DesmoDovi’ 33 points behind in the standings.

  Difficult QP but we're ready to fight hard for a good position tomorrow 💪 Qualifiche difficili ma siamo pronti a lottare per una buona posizione domani! 💪 #Dovi04 #DesmoDovi #AD04 #Ride04Real #ForzaDucati #MotoGP #Alpinestars #SuomyHelmets #RedBull #OldWildWest Ph. @marc_robinot A post shared by Andrea Dovizioso (@andreadovizioso) on Oct 21, 2017 at 4:31am PDT

“The race was a big disappointment and we really lost a lot of points in the championship,” says the Italian. “For sure my mistake in the early stages of the race complicated things and maybe even the choice of rear tyre was not the best one, but on this track our bike is still struggling a lot.”

At Phillip Island, the highest placed Ducati rider was 11th in qualifying – Dovizioso – and 11th in the race; Scott Redding (Octo Pramac Racing), as the Brit passed both Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) on the drag to the line. After a stunning season at the majority of venues, Dovizioso explains the difficulties for the marque Down Under:

“This year we’ve managed to improve many aspects and be competitive throughout the season, but when you come to tracks like this, where you don’t brake very much and where there are lots of long fast corners, some of our limits are magnified: in fact here at Phillip Island none of the Ducatis were very quick. Pity, because at this point of the season it would have been better to be closer to Marquez in the standings, but now we have to think of Malaysia, where quite simply we’ll have to give it our all.”

There is one ace up the Italian’s sleeve as the grid head for Kuala Lumpur, with the weather always a complicator – and good memories from Dovizioso’s first win since 2009, achieved last season, sure to be at the forefront of his mind.