Maiden win shocks elated Dovizioso

The Italian, in his first year at the works Honda team and in his second in the premier class, won a hectic British Grand Prix at a rainy Donington Park after avoiding the mistakes made by the title contenders.

The Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi both crashed while in the lead, Ducati's Casey Stoner made a disastrous tyre gamble, while Dovizioso's team-mate Dani Pedrosa faltered when conditions worsened.

After Rossi's crash on lap 20 Dovizioso, who was right behind the reigning world champion, had a lead of more than 10s over Randy de Puniet and Colin Edwards, but that gap was reduced to just 1.6s with three laps to go in the 30-lap race.

However, the fight between the two rivals behind Dovizioso slowed them down and allowed the latter to take the win.

"I've won a race in MotoGP, I still can't realise that," exclaimed Dovizioso when interviewed by Italia1 television.

"I'm so happy: I've done a fantastic race because the conditions were extremely difficult. It was easy until Valentino fell, because I was following him. After that it was so hard because I had 11s and thought they wouldn't push anymore and wouldn't come back to me.

"Instead they made up so many seconds in such little time. The problem was that I couldn't see where it was wet and where it wasn't, so you didn't know where you could push, and with the slicks it's so easy to lose grip. I didn't want to miss this chance. It's been hard, but it's a great satisfaction."

Dovizioso's victory comes after three extremely disappointing races that saw him crash and fail to score any points.

"This year has been very difficult," he explained. "We have problems to solve, and that's the reason why we haven't got so many good results, and especially we didn't score any points in the last races. But we are working on it, we're trying to do our best."

"This was an odd race, so it isn't a victory in normal conditions in the dry. But being there and fighting for the win means we are going for it, and we are working in the right direction."