Dovizioso adamant race will be better

The Italian has been overshadowed by Stoner and Pedrosa since Honda expanded its works line-up to three bikes for this year.

Dovizioso put his poor result tonight down to a lack of affinity with the soft qualifying tyre and is sure he can fight for the podium in race trim.

"I'm disappointed with the third row, I need to improve the use of the soft tyre for a better qualifying," he said.

"The positive point is that we have a good pace to fight for a podium spot, this is our target tomorrow.

"We will work during the warm-up to improve the set-up to get more stability at the beginning of the braking and I hope to gain more confidence and find a good stability in the front."

He hopes to immediately get up with the frontrunners, and is confident he will be a match for everyone bar Stoner in the grand prix.

"For the race it will be very important to have a good start and arrive at Turn 1 close to the first riders," Dovizioso said.

"It is impossible to catch Casey, I will try to maintain contact with Dani, [Jorge] Lorenzo and [Ben] Spies.

"It's important to start the season with a good result and I will give everything in the race."