An&nb♊sp;11th place finish on day-one of Mandalika MotoGP is 🀅as close as Dovizioso has come to any top ten appearance this season. 

With just over two minutes remaining of an enthralling FP2 session, Dovizioso managed to slot i🧸nto fifth place behind factory Yamaha riders Fabio Qu🐈artararo and Franco Morbidelli, who ended the day 1-2.

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However, a series of late time attacks saw the RNF Yamaha rider pushed out of the top ten by nearly two tenths, leaving the experienced Italian to confess that the amount of work ne♉eded to extract the performance wanted is proving mightily difficult. 

The Italian said: "I still have to work a lot on learning how to ride the bike the correct way and until I manage to do that correctly, I have to basically put in double the 𝓡amount of work. 

"I still need some improvement and especially, when the grip is like this. I did a different strategy and started with the soft tyre, but it didn💖’t work. 

"I managed to do some laps behind Franky (Morbidelli), which was very i🅰mp♒ortant to see how the bike is ridden correctly. 

"The condition of the track was a bit better than during the test, there is still a line and you have to be really careful, when you leave it. Tꦓhisও is going to be difficult for the race."

For team-mate Darryn Binder, the South African once again found hꩵimself towards the back of the field as only Luca Marini finished behind him. 

With limited experience, not only on MotoGP machinery, but also on wet tyres, Binder alluded to stru♈ggling for confidence in the tricky conditions. 

"This morning was quite difficult," said Binder. "Th𒁏e conditions have been a bit mixed at the beginning of the session. I did a couple of laps on the wets, stopped, put in theꦑ slicks, but I just struggled to gain enough confidence to cross the wet patches. 

"W𓆏ith this big bike and so much power every time you touch the wet patches and it moves, I get a little bit nervous, so I struggled to get comfortable this morning. 

"Anywa🉐y, it was a learning experience nonetheless. FP2 was quite good. We really tried to i🌺mprove a lot. 

"I fꦛelt quite good and felt that the tyres are different from the test. The grip on the tyre see♉ms to be less than what we had at the test. 

"So I was just really trying to understand that and trying to make changes to improve. I have a b𒁏etter understanding now after FP2 and I think we ꦰcan work on some things for tomorrow. 

"I still need to l൲earn how to really push 100% on the first lap with a new tyre to get tဣhe absolute maximum. Overall, I’m quite happy with how things went. Hopefully we can improve tomorrow if the weather stays stable."