Motegi MotoGP: Victory eludes Andrea Dovizioso

A first dry MotoGP victory continues to elude Andrea Dovizioso after he failed to overcome in-form factory Ducati rider Casey Stoner in Japan yesterday.

The Italian was starting from pole position for the first time in his premier class career but was unable to prevent Stoner from sweeping into the lead at the first corner.

It was a lead the 24-year-old wasn’t to relinquish despite Repsol Honda rider Dovizioso exerting intense pressure for the majority of the race.

He was able to stay close to Stoner but in one last attempt to add to his win at last year’s rain-hit British Grand Prix at Donington Park, the former world 125GP champion nearly high-sided out three laps from home.

He settled for second to end a barren run without a rostrum, his last top three coming in the fifth race at Silverstone.

And in another boost for Dovizioso, who has yet to understand which team he will race for in 2011, he snatched fourth place in the overall rankings from third placed Valentino Rossi with just four races remaining.

Dovizioso said: “I pushed at 100 per cent 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 the 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.”