MOTOGP: Dovizioso happy with best result

Andrea Dovizioso claimed his best result to date on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 after gaining the upper hand in his duel with team-mate Cal Crutchlow. Dovi and the British ace went head to head for the third successive MotoGP race at Estoril in Portugal but this time it was the Italian who prevailed. He made his move at the first corner on lap five and although he was pursued by Crutchlow for the duration of the race, Dovizioso held his nerve under intense pressure to stay on for a hard-earned fourth place finish to cap his best performance yet on the 1000cc M1. “I am very satisfied with my performance in today's race and particularly with the pace I could run because I was very fast and consistent throughout,” said the former 125cc world champion. “It is a good way to end the weekend because a few small problems on Friday and Saturday meant we could not work as much as we would have liked to improve the bike. “I am happy because the target this weekend was to reduce the gap to the fastest and we managed to achieve that. But the fact I could keep the speed for 28-laps that I was not able to find in practice is a very positive point. “It is a good fourth place but there's no doubt starting from the third row on the grid hampered me at the beginning of the race because I couldn't even try to stay with the leading group,” he added. “Maybe it would have been closer or maybe we could have even been with [Dani] Pedrosa, but we will never know. “Now I am looking forward to racing in Le Mans because it is the home race of the Tech 3 Team and it is also a raced sponsored by Monster Energy, so everybody has a lot of motivation to do well.”