It took just five races for Andrea Dovizioso on a satellite Yamaha to get on the podium and claim a third place podium.
The Italian rider who switched to Iwata manufacturer after spending his entire career on Honda’s.
The Italian grabbed the third spot after three laps and faltered only once that made him lose contact with Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.
Dovizioso however can be happy to have kept a resurgent Casey Stoner behind him in the last lap.
“I am really happy to get my first podium for Yamaha and this is a fantastic reward for all the effort my Monster Yamaha Tech 3 crew has put in since I came to this Team,” said Dovi.
“We have been building up to this result for a while now, but it is great to be battling at the front in MotoGP on a satellite machine and I’m sure nobody expected us to be doing this so early.
Now we can go to Silverstone with a lot of confidence.
”We expected to see Cal Crutchlow rather than Andrea Dovizioso on the podium if one of the ‘aliens’ failed, instead the Briton took fifth place but he managed to dice it out with a World Champion like Casey Stoner for almost the entire race until he faded in the end.
“I’d have liked to have battled for the podium at the end and I think if I could have passed Casey I could have gone with Andrea.
I was strong in some parts of the track and Casey in others, so each time I’d close up, he would be able to pull away and manage the gap.
I couldn’t do anything else to get by him but he’s not the World Champion for nothing.
Now I’m really looking forward to my home race at Silverstone where I hope to be battling for the podium again in front of my own fans,” said Crutchlow.