‘Rossi close to Yamaha return’
Andrea Dovizioso fears his chances of landing a Yamaha factory ride are all but over as Valentino Rossi is "really close" to agreeing a return.
Switching from Honda to Yamaha for this year's Championship, the Italian joined the Tech 3 team in the hope of working his way up to a factory ride for next season.
Dovizioso's chances were boosted earlier this month with news that Ben Spies would part ways with the team at the end of this season, freeing up the American's ride.
However, that was soon followed by rumours that Rossi could make a shock return to the team that he left under a cloud of tension two years ago.
And it appears those Rossi rumours could be true after Dovizioso revealed that his chances of making the expected step up could be scuppered by the Italian.
"This is what I expected, but it looks like Valentino is really close," he told the official MotoGP website.
"So I don't know exactly; it's not fixed.
"This is really bad for me because I swapped to Yamaha because I believed I can find a place in the factory team."
He added: "We've done the best we can this year and we've had four podiums.
"But it looks like this is not enough to get that place, but we'll see in the next two weeks."
