Davide Tardozzi admits ‘I blame’ 15-win MotoGP legend’s ‘attitude’ for costing Ducati a title they deserved to win

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Ducati have only won the MotoGP riders’ championship four times throughout their premier class history with just Casey Stoner and Francesco Bagnaia victorious in red.

Jorge Martin became the fourth rider to win the MotoGP championship aboard a Ducati last year. But the Spaniard made history as the first rider to win the title in the MotoGP era while racing with an independent team, as Martin beat Bagnaia to the championship with Pramac.

Bagnaia had brought Ducati’s lengthy title drought to an end with his back-to-back triumphs in 2022 and 2023. The Borgo Panigale natives waited 15 long years to be the top team again, following Stoner becoming the first Ducati riders champion during the 2007 MotoGP season.

A fifth crown and a fourth for a rider dressed in red could follow this term, with Bagnaia and Marc Marquez duelling for glory at Ducati alongside Alex Marquez of Gresini. While Bagnaia gained P2 after Maverick Vinales’ illegal Qatar GP tyre pressures, he trails Marc by 26 points.

Davide Tardozzi ‘blames’ Andrea Dovizioso’s ‘attitude’ to Michelin’s tyres for costing Ducati the 2020 title

Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi feels the Bologna Bullets should also have added their second riders’ title before Bagnaia lifted his first in 2022. Tardozzi believes Andrea Dovizioso cost Ducati the 2020 championship, which Joan Mir won to gift Suzuki their first since 2000.

The Covid-disrupted 2020 season with only 14 rounds was supposed to be Dovizioso’s year after Marquez’s career-threatening 2020 Spanish Grand Prix crash. He had come second to the then-Honda rider in 2017, 2018 and 2019 but fell away after Michelin changed the tyres.

Tardozzi admits he and Dovizioso never discussed ‘in depth’ the cause for his problems with the tyres Michelin introduced in the second half of the 2020 term. Yet the Ducati team boss feels it was the Italian’s mindset that caused his form to fall away while others still delivered.

Tardozzi told Moto.it: “I was having lunch with Dovizioso on the beach last Saturday. So, my relationship with Dovizioso has remained good. Obviously, I blame Andrea for the fact that at certain times – especially in 2020 – we didn’t bring home the maximum.

“I think Andrea had some great seasons finishing second behind a phenomenon like Marc Marquez in super shape. After that, in 2020 I didn’t like the attitude he had in certain situations regarding the tyre.

“He didn’t know how to change his skin because in 2020, Andrea had to win the world championship because Dovi deserved that world championship, we deserved that world championship and maybe the story would have gone differently.”

MotoGP Legend Andrea Dovizioso missed his chance to be a riders’ champion for Ducati

The 2020 MotoGP season was very much Dovizioso’s best hope to win a rider’s title and to end Ducati’s drought. But he could only show form in patches with an average finish of P6.7, helped by his P3 finish in the 2020 season-opening Spanish GP and winning the Austrian GP.

Mir also won one race all season in 2020, yet lifted the title on 171 points ahead of Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Franco Morbidelli. Dovizioso, who was named a MotoGP Legend in 2023, only ranked fourth with 135 points in what would be his final campaign racing for Ducati, as well.

It was a huge missed opportunity by the Italian after pushing Marquez closest in each of the three previous seasons. Dovizioso lost out by 37 points in 2017, by 76 points in 2018 and by 151 points in 2019 but Marquez’s highside at Jerez removed the Honda rider from the fight.

Ducati would overhaul their rider line-up for 2021, as well, as Bagnaia and Jack Miller joined to replace Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci. Dovizioso re-appeared on the grid late in 2021 for Petronas SRT, but never added another Grand Prix win to his tally of 15 after leaving Ducati.