Eight months and seventeen races since the championship got underway in March at the Losail circuit in Qatar, the MotoGP teams and riders have arrived in Spain for the final round of the season, the Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana โ a.k.a. the Valencia Grand Prix โ at the Ricardo Tormo circuit near Cheste on the outskirts of Valencia this weekend.
The track runs in a counter-clockwise direction with the bikes getting little opportunity to reach top speed on the twisty layout.
It will be a very important weekend for the Ducati Team, which comes off the back of a splendid 1-2 win for Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo at Sepang, because the Italian is now the only man who can stop Marquez from taking the title.
Twenty-one points separate โDesmoDovi' from the Spanish champion, which means that to take the world title, Andrea needs to win the race with Marquez finishing twelfth or lower. In any case 2017 has been an extraordinary season for Dovizioso, with six wins to his name plus one second and one third place.
Andrea has taken part in nine MotoGP races at Valencia, with his best result being a third place in 2011, while last year he finished the race in seventh place after starting from the second row.
โWe come to Valencia with a big gap in the points from Marquez and on a track where he goes very well, so we know it's going to be tough," Dovi said.
"The only strategy for me, with this gap, is to try and win and then see where my rival finishes. In this period we are going strongly at almost every track and so we have to try and approach this weekend with optimism, as we have always done recently.โ
