What?
Rumours are circulating that the Italian Bridesmaid Andrea Dovizioso is to make his probably-not-that-sensational MotoGP return this weekend riding for Aprilia.
Andrea has been testing the RS-GP ‘dark nail’ this week at Jerez to see if it’s something he’d want to be associated with. Early noises from the Dovizioso camp were that he was impressed with the ‘easiness’ of the bike’s handling and the way it could also easily handle enough family sized calzones on the comical front wing to comfortably feed the village of Bazzano.
Is the Aprilia any good?
It’s very hard to say. Early impressions are that the Italian scooter firm have successfully closed the gap to the leaders this season – a gap that was often measured in lunar-cycles when Bradley Smith was riding it. The problem is that Aprilia haven’t had a top-quality second rider to gauge their bike since Andrea Ioannone was banned for accidentally eating drugs over a year ago.
How?
Should Dovizioso choose to ride the RS-GP it will be at the expense of Aprilia’s current number two, number two rider Lorenzo Savadori. The unknown Savadori was drafted in to replace Bradley Smith at the end of last season after winning a wordsearch competition on the Aprilia website. However, despite all pre-season mathematical probabilities stating otherwise, Lorenzo’s results have not actually been much better than Smith’s.
If Dovi does chose to ride we at MGPN have been reliably informed that Aprilia will claim that it’s to rest Savadori’s injured shoulder which is the reason, he says, of him being a bit rubbish.
Why is Dovi even out if he wanted to stay?
Last year Andrea Dovizioso had a plan. He quit Ducati and banked his career on Marc Marquez’s shoulder being up-the-spout for another season. With Marquez out Andrea would be perfectly set up to claim the plum Repsol ride. Unfortunately for the devious Italian the packet of Wickes cement powder set faster than expected in Marc’s shoulder allowing him to be given the medical all-clear to return to racing and start upsetting Rossi fans again.
Why bother?
Andrea has a lot of unfinished business in MotoGP – all of which is aimed at getting back at Ducati. Dermatologists claim that Dovi’s face aged over 55 years during his troublesome final 12 months with Ducati and the Italian rider is keen to payback some of that bottled up hatred.
So will he race this weekend?
Over to you…