The Italian factory, which 🉐at that time was yet to take a top-five finish with its RS-GP, clearly h🦋arboured hopes of convincing the triple title runner-up to race for the team in future.

Dovizioso attended three tests for Aprilia, a debut at Jerez followed by a rain-ruined outing at Mugello, then 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:♔a ‘very interesting’ two-day test 🔥at Misano in late June.

“Aprilia Racing is taking measures to find the best solution in terms of the riders to put on the grid in 2022,” Aprilia’s Mas🌜simo Rivola said after Dovizioso’s Misano test.

"Andrea is certainly included🐻 in the solutions we are assessing, but there are very interesting and valid alternatives on the table and a decision must be taken soon.”

While Aprilia was keen to si🍬gn the 15-time MotoGP race winner, Dovizioso remained hesitant.

“They wanted to do that [race] from the beginning,” Dovizioso said at Silverstone last weekend. “But I explained to them I was living (a dif💎ferent 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 reall𓄧y 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.”

Another big name soon appeared on the Aprilia radar in the form of Maverick Vinales, the fallout from his shock split from Yamaha in-turn opening up the chance for Dovizioso to race a factory-spec M1 for the𝕴 RNF team in 2022.

Aprilia has gone 𝄹on t🎐o be the surprise of the season, celebrating seven podiums and its first race win.

Yamaha leads the st💎andings with reigning champion Fabio Quartararo, but it’s been a different story for the other M1s, with Franco Morbidelli just ♌19th, Darryn Binder 21st and Dovizioso 22nd.

In hindsight, it’s ea▨sy to say that Aprilia would have been the bette✅r option for Dovizioso, but the Italian has no regrets.

“No [regrets]. Because everything is related to the feeling you have when you’re doing something. The feeling [during the Aprilia tests] wasn’t good enough to say, ‘I want to do this, t🐎his and this’,” he explained.

Pulling Dovizioso in favour of the Yamaha option was a memorable 2012 campaign on a satellite M1 for Tech3, when Dovizioso took six podiums and finished fourth in๊ the world championship on a year-old mac🐟hine.

Tech3’s Herve Poncharal recently told mahbx.com that the ‘dream’�𒀰� to race a factory M1 probably never went away and⛎ Dovizioso confirmed:

“In the mind of the rider, you are convinced by a lot of things. In my mind🎀 it was 2012,𓃲 the last time I raced with this bike.

“In my mind, I was convinced with Yaꦆmaha 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.”

Unfortunately for Dov𒀰izioso, almost from the moment he first rode the ‘modern’ version of th☂e M1, at Misano last season, he realised it required a very specific style that only Quartararo can currently master.

“For me what happens on the bike is so clear. I never changed my opinion. Straight away I could feel it. There is no question in my mind,” he said at the🧜 British Grand Prix.

“The way to be faster [on this bike] is 💝the same story – make more speed in the middle of the corners and not pay too much attention to the traction area.

“T🌠o be faster, I have to carry more speed in the middle and exit wide. But for me it’s very difficul🐭t to do that. That’s it.”

The 36-year-old now has just two races left before hanging up his MotoGP leathers. While it’s nice to imagine he can simply go out and enjoy his remaining laps on a grand prix prototype, 🌠in reality “everything is related to speed. Especially as the way to ride this bike is not my way.

"If we don’t have the [timing] transponder, w𒈔e can enjoy. But like this, no.”

Although Dovizioso can’t make the M1 work, and isn’t seeking any MotoGP alternatives for 2023, “I know I can be competitive e🏅ven if I am 36 years old.

“I never tried to spe💙ak t🌃o someone about next year [but] I believe I can be competitive in a different situation. How much I don’t know.

“Two years ago I was 4th [in the world championship]. I’m coꦺnvinc𝔍ed I’m fast. I don’t have any question about that. That can’t change from one year to the other.”

“♕Aleix has a style even [more old school] than me. It’s not related to that. Do you think in two years the position on the bike can change the championship? I don’t think so.”

Yamaha’s 2023 horsepower quest ‘right way to go… with Fabio’

The gulf in performance between the Yama𒅌♑ha riders this season creates something of a development dilemma.

Should the factory risk wide-ranging changes to try and raise the level of all its riders, but potentially lower Quartararo’s performance (the Marc Marquez and Honda situation) or focus on engine 🌠development - the only area where Quartararo has been pleading for progress?

Unsurprisingly, Yamaha has chosen the latter, including hiring ex-Formula 1 engine designer Luca Marm🅺orini as a consultant.

“This is the right way to try to be more competitive with Fabio, yes,” said Dovizioso of Y🎀amaha’s 2023 engine focusꦆ.

But it wouldn’t have b꧂een a major benefit for Dovizioso and, by extension, the other M1 riders.

“❀If you give me more power but I am slow in the corner, I will be slow the same,” he said. “How can you change the speed in the middle of the corners with more power? It’s not about power for me.”

Nonetheless, Dovi understands Yamaha’s strat✅egy of addressing Quartararoও’s needs first.

“This is normal. Honda did this with Marc and the𝔉y won a lot of things. I accept that. Maybe if I’m Yamaha I would do the same thing.”

European manufacturers ‘risk more’ than the Japanese

Quartararo and Yamaha may be leading the world c🔯hampionship but Ducati, Aprilia and KTM riders filled the top six places at the British MotoGP with only one S𝔉uzuki (Alex Rins) and a Yamaha (Quartararo) inside the top ten.

Dovizioso, who spent eight years🃏 with Ducati before the Aprilia tests and satellite Yamaha return, feels momentum has clearly swung in favou༒r of the European machines.

“That's clear꧅. Not from now. I think in the last five, six years, it started to change,” Dovizioso said. “The structure of the European manufacturers are completely differen🌳t than the Japanese, and how much the Europeans are pushing and how many risks the Europeans are taking is completely different than the Japanese.

“That changed completely MotoGP. That’s clear. But not from this year. At the end, the base of the Japanese [bikes] is I thinꩵk still better, but the base is not enough. You need a complete package.

“In my opinion, the European manufacturers show how good they are now because they wꦜork in a differe🎉nt way, but especially the structure of the team and behind is different than the Japanese manufacturers.

“They [Japanese] won a lot of things. They ൩did a [great] history. But this is development of the best class in motorcycling. This [change] is normal.”

Agreeing that the Japanese factories need a different mindset to respond to their European rivals, Dovizioso gave an insight into his own experience in t💮rying to adapt to the M1.

“I couldn’t work in the way I wanted, to try to change the situation. But, when you speak to them, and we did a lot of meetings, you understand this is the mentality. This is the character of the manufacturer; you can do this and you can’🍰t do this.”

“I think the point is the mentality,” he added🎶. “It’s wrong to say ‘this is what they have to do’. I’m not that kind of person. But it’s more the me🍃ntality. The reaction of the Japanese is different than the reaction of the Europeans.”

D🔯ovizioso will start his penultimate event for Yamaha in Austria this weekend, the𓆉 scene of some of his greatest victories, over Marc Marquez in 2017 and 2019.