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16/03/2007 - Dani Pedrosa shines in Qatar

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa underlined his intentions for 2007 with a superb third-place at the first MotoGP race of 2007.

The former 250 and 125 champion battled the likes of Valentino Rossi, John Hopkins and eventual winner Casey Stoner to secure the final position on the podium.

The Spaniard now looks forward to his home GP at the end of this month at Jerez. "I’m happy with the result today and to start the season with a third place is pretty useful," said Dani. "We had a fair few problems this weekend, so to finish on the podium is good for us. I made a great start which I was happy with because my practice starts this weekend weren’t as good as this. In the race I was trying to ride at the maximum and then I made a mistake in the last corner and lost the slipstream to the riders in front, so a third place is a good result for us."

Team-mate Nicky Hayden struggled all weekend with a lack of feel from the front-end of his 800cc RC212V machine, but will be continue to battle on.

The 25-year-old from Kentucky dug-deep to win last year's title and will be a contender this year as he gets to grips with the new 800cc machine.

He said: "I tried to learn as much as I could in the race. I really felt like I rode my hardest and had some good dices with a few of the guys - I just about caught Vermeulen on the last lap and I got faster as the race went on. My last two laps were my fastest laps of the race and that’s the positive thing. Roll on the next race."