Both Dovizioso and Simoncelli rode factory-spec Hondas on Sunday, as they battled for 4th place through the majority of the race. While the two exchanged positions a few times, Dovizioso argued that one particular call made by the Gresini rider had a direct effect on his performance afterwards.
“I lost time in the fight with Simoncelli, his passing maneuver was at the limit in my opinion,” said a frustrated Simoncelli at the end of the race. “This was a crucial moment because we lost time which we needed to fight for the podium.”
The Italian eventually finished only a few tenths of a second behind teammate Dani Pedrosa, having started the race from the 3rd row on the grid, in 7th place.
Simoncelli, whose 5th place in Qatar was his second best classification in the MotoGP, did not bring any references to the aforementioned incident, saying that he was delighted with his performance on Sunday.
“I am really happy because I thought my pace would be in the 1m56s but we were able to better it,” he said, while admitting that his run on used tires was not as good as he had expected it. “At the end in the battle with Dovizioso I was slightly slower than him on used tires and I dropped off.”
“Anyway, it was great to see the others so close up and I am sure this was my best race - maybe not the result but in terms of my consistency and the distance to the race winner.”
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