Image: Supplied.

Last year’s MotoGP World Championship runner-up Andrea Dovizioso is striving to go one better in 2018, coming off a season where he scored no less than six wins in a breakout campaign.

The 31-year-old had the most success of his career last season and at last night’s Ducati Team launch in Bologna, the Italian said that the sole priority now is to capture a first premier class championship.

“Last year was a superb and very successful one and we also learnt a lot of things on which we can continue to work this year,” Dovizioso commented. “Our bike still had certain characteristics that made life difficult on several tracks and for 2018, we have focussed on improving these aspects because we must always be in a position to fight for the podium at every circuit.

“After finishing runner-up with six wins in 2017, naturally our objective can be nothing less than fight to win the championship, but we must remain with our feet firmly on the ground because we know that each year brings with it something different. In any case we are starting off with the competitive level of last year and we must only remain focussed 100 percent like last year, when me and my team worked really well together.”

Dovizioso will start his sixth-straight year with Ducati Team this year, the 11th full season that the 2004 125GP World Championship winner has competed in MotoGP.