This lunchtime, Andrea Dovizioso claimed his fifth podium of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix, after finishing second in the race held at Motegi, the Honda-owned circuit. With this result, the Repsol rider climbs to fourth in the championship standings, also claiming the Repsol Honda Team’s 250th podium since the Spanish company joined the HRC factory team in 1995.
For the first time this season and in his sporting career, the Italian Repsol Honda Team rider started from pole position on the MotoGP starting grid and although he had a good start, he was overtaken by Casey Stoner in the first few turns. Both riders quickly broke away from the rest of their rivals and although it seemed that Dovizioso was managing to maintain the half a second gap with Stoner, the Italian was never really able to put the pressure on the Australian.
A couple of frights, the last one in the turn running up to the finish line – he was almost thrown off his bike after his rear wheel skidded –, finally made Dovizioso accept that today he would have to make do with second, repeating the position he achieved at the British Grand Prix. This result rewards the intensive work done in the heart of the Repsol Honda Team that, during the 16 years that it has been competing in the premier-class, has claimed 250 podiums, thanks to riders like Dovizioso, Dani Pedrosa, Mick Doohan, Alex Crivillé and Valentino Rossi.
While Andrea Dovizioso claimed second place at the Japanese circuit of Motegi, on the other side of the world, his team-mate Dani Pedrosa was recovering at the USP Dexeus in Barcelona from the operation he underwent yesterday to fix his injured left collarbone. After a two-hour operation, the doctors who operated on him are satisfied with the result. The Repsol Honda Team rider will shortly begin rehabilitation.
Andrea Dovizioso, 2nd 3,868 sec. behind. >> Audio
“I pushed at 100 percent for the whole race and the lap times of Casey and me were pretty impressive and very consistent. 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. It was hard to maintain the pace on the tyre in the last few laps and I nearly had a big highside three laps from the end – at that moment I knew I couldn’t win the race. 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. 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”.
