Podium return delights Dovizioso

Podium return delights Dovizioso

Sunday, 03 October 2010

Second place in the Grand Prix of Japan gave the Italian his first podium finish after eight races without a top-three result, and also delivered the Repsol Honda team its 250th rostrum result.

Podium return delights Dovizioso

Andrea Dovizioso ended his eight-race run without a podium finish in style on Sunday as he finished second at Motegi. The Repsol Honda started a premier class race from pole position for the first time in his career as he scored his fifth top-three result of 2010.

“I pushed at 100% for the whole race and the lap times of Casey and me were pretty impressive and very consistent,” said Dovizioso, who tracked eventual race winner Stoner for the entire race. “At the beginning, Casey was really fast when the tyres weren’t fully up to temperature and at that moment I knew it was going to be a hard fight with him. I don’t know what Casey did to up his pace today but his speed was amazing. There were two or three places on that lap where he was faster than me every time, but I saw that he was also on the limit and so I kept pushing.”

Dovizioso made a push to try and challenge for the win as the final three laps approached, but a moment almost cost him the chance of securing his first podium since Silverstone in June.

“It was hard to maintain the pace on the tyre in the last few laps and I nearly had a big high side three laps from the end - at that moment I knew I couldn’t win the race,” he said. “It was a little bit disappointing because I wanted the win and I thought it was possible today, but I’m really happy to be back on the podium again.”

“Following Casey I learned a lot about the strategy for tuning the electronics settings for the final part of the race when the tyre performance is dropping off, so this is really positive for the future.”

Dovizioso’s result also delivered the team its 250th podium since Repsol and Honda joined forces in 1995. He concluded by adding: “I want to say thank you to the team because I’m in this position thanks to their hard work. And also thanks to HRC - I’m really glad to have a good result at Honda’s home race.”

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