Andrea Dovizioso delighted with third

Andrea Dovizioso was in jubilant mood after he exacted revenge on Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa to claim third place in the French MotoGP race.

A year ago Dovizioso lost third on the final lap to his Spanish team-mate after Pedrosa had superbly pulled back a ten-second deficit in a gripping flag-to-flag encounter.

But it was Dovizioso’s turn to celebrate on Sunday in front of over 82,000 fans at the Le Mans circuit.

The Italian claimed fourth place on the third lap when Casey Stoner tumbled out at the Garage Vert corner and it was a position he held until the crucial final moments of the race.

With Pedrosa struggling to overcome a rear brake issue on his factory RC212V, Dovizioso pounced with a brilliant overtake at the first chicane on the final lap.

Pedrosa tried to retaliate but ran wide and Dovizioso comfortably held onto claim his second podium finish in the first three races.

That’s already one more than he managed in his entire first season for Repsol Honda in 2009 and the former 125GP world champion said: “I am so happy because we needed the podium, also for last year when Dani pulled back ten seconds on me and passed me on the last lap. Everybody knows that Dani has really good acceleration so it was so difficult to be in the perfect position on the brakes to overtake him. He made the line to block me and it was really difficult. Nicky (Hayden) was really close as well so I needed to choose the strategy really fast.”
Dovizioso described his start to 2010 as perfect as he followed up his third place finish in Qatar.

He added: “It is the opposite from last year. I’m much faster and competitive. I can’t ride the bike like I want but the position is still coming.

“It is the perfect start because we made a good improvement compared to last year. At the end of last year I was really slow and I’d lost completely the feeling with the bike.

“It is still not enough because we aren’t fighting for the victory but we are getting closer and closer. It was a good result and I was only seven seconds away from (Jorge) Lorenzo.

Dovizoso raced with a new chassis he first tried at the recent test session in Jerez but he said Honda still had plenty of work to do to try and fight on a consistent basis with dominant Japanese factory Yamaha.

He added: “We changed many things during the winter and the first three races but there is not always a big difference.

“What we need is another big thing but during the season it is difficult. Honda is working really hard but what we need is bigger to fight with them.”