Ducati’s Andrea Dovizoso is expecting there to be less grip available over the MotoGP weekend at Buriram than there was in the pre-season test.

Dovizioso ended the test four-tenths off fastest man Dani Pedrosa in February and the Italian believes there will be less grip now than eight months ago.

“We have never raced here, we can’t know every details and the tyres are completely different than the test. For sure the situation about the speed of the riders is a bit different than February so anything can happen,” said Dovizioso, speaking at the track.

“For sure we can start with a good speed but we will see how will be the tyres. We try something during the test and the grip was very low, looks like on the paper these tyres will be with less grip, looks like, so we will see.

“We will have to fight with a lot of different things and the first is the heat. The heat is very high, and maybe it will be worse than Malaysia. To make 27 laps is very hard for everybody, the bike is very hot and is difficult. It will affect the race and the work of the tyres. It is impossible today to know how it can be.”

Michelin have brought a special allocation of tyres for this round, using the same casings as Austria to combat the predicted heat.