Andrea Dovizioso took third in Portugal on Sunday following a thrilling dice with Marco Simoncelli that went right down to the final corner. The battle was a major highlight of the race and after exchanging places many times the Respol Honda rider finally crossed the line just 0.059s in front.
It was Dovizioso’s seventh podium finish of the season and it now puts him within ten points of Casey Stoner in the battle for fourth place in the 2010 MotoGP World Championship.
“To be back onto the podium is so important for us and I’d like to thank my team and fans for their support this weekend. We can’t be completely happy with our pace today because we were a long way from the front two riders, but overall the result is positive for us,” Dovizioso said.
“The situation at Estoril has been strange for the whole weekend with every session being held in wet conditions and third position was the best we could have done today. It was quite an aggressive battle with Simoncelli but it has always been like this with him, so I needed to have a strategy for the last lap.
“He was faster than me in T3 and T4 and every time into the chicane he overtook me, but I knew that it was possible to take him out of the last corner because I had a bit more speed onto the straight, so this was my plan - and it worked.
“Now it’s possible to fight with Stoner for fourth place in the championship and - although it will be difficult because he was fast here before he crashed and also has a ten point lead - this will be our target for Valencia next weekend.”
Simoncelli meanwhile was philosophical about missing out on his maiden MotoGP podium result. Indeed while he was slightly disappointed, fourth was still his best result of the season, his first in the top class: "I am really pleased with my race today. We did everything right and I was able to maintain a good rhythm from the start to the end,” he continued.
“Dovizioso was a little bit faster than me on the straights but I still thought I could beat him. Unfortunately I made a tiny mistake in the final turn and lost a little bit of speed onto the straight, which gave him the advantage over the line.
“It was a shame but I am still delighted because this feels almost as good as a podium to us. Over the last four or five races I have been consistently on the pace from Friday practice and we did it again here at Estoril.
"Obviously we still have to work to improve the bike, especially the electronics, if we want to be on the podium but maybe we can do that at Valencia,” summed-up the Honda Gresini man.
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Marco Simoncelli
Andrea Dovizioso
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