Andrea Dovizioso has acknowledged the Assen circuit doesn’t favour the Ducati as the MotoGP World Championship heads to The Netherlands this weekend, although he’s comfortable the team will progress with a competitive package come Sunday.

The Mission Winnow Ducati ace is coming off a heartbreaking appearance in Barcelona, where he was taken down in a multi-rider crash caused by former teammate Jorge Lorenzo (Repsol Honda).

“There’s no time to linger on the points lost at Barcelona, we need to tackle each race working as hard as we’ve done until now. I believe we are showing great competitiveness and, even though there are always areas to improve, we have proven our speed.

“Assen isn’t the most favourable track for our bike and weather conditions always play a fundamental role there, but at any rate we’ve shown we’re capable of progressively improving during the course of a weekend even on tricky circuits. We need to stay calm and focused, taking it one race at a time. The Championship has still a long way to go.”

The Italian is ranked second in the standings, albeit 37 points off reigning champion and leader Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda).