Valentino Rossi extended his Estoril podium record with third place today, meaning he has now finished on the podium at all of his nine career visits to the Portuguese track.

Valentino Rossi 3rd +12.723
"At the end of the day this isn't a bad result for us because we expected this to be quite a difficult track for us. My M1 worked well today; I got a good start and was able to stay at the front to begin with and have some fun. My Bridgestone tyres were working well but I was thinking about trying to conserve them as much as possible because I knew 28 laps was going to be hard. Unfortunately I couldn't stay with Lorenzo and Pedrosa in the later stages and I started to slide a little bit, but anyway to have two podiums in a row with Bridgestone is very important because we're still in the learning stages of our relationship. I think we've made another step forward this weekend and we have an important test tomorrow - I hope in China we will be able to fight for the win!"

Davide Brivio - Team Manager
"Valentino defended very well today despite difficult conditions for us and we took a good podium and some important points. We expected it to be hard and I want to thank the team and our engineers for working hard all week and keeping the level of our Yamaha-Bridgestone package at the maximum. We're looking forward to another 15 races and we hope that in China we'll be in attacking form and able to get our first win with Bridgestone! We will work on tyres and settings for China tomorrow and then everyone will have a good rest before the next challenge."

Masahiko Nakajima - Team Director
"Very impressive! This weekend Jorge has been very consistent and to get a third pole position and then go on to win is fantastic. He showed a strong drive in the race and proved that he can keep his concentration at the maximum for the entire race. I want to congratulate him for a great achievement and thank him on behalf of everyone at Yamaha.

"Unfortunately for Valentino we are still struggling a bit in some areas but anyway the combination between our chassis and the Bridgestone tyres is improving race by race. Step-by-step we are making progress and for sure here in Estoril everything went even better than in Jerez. This is a very unusual track; it requires a very delicate chassis balance because it has the slowest average speed in the world championship but also some very high-speed areas. In conclusion, I am happy with Valentino's podium in these difficult conditions and I am confident that next time we will improve even more together with Bridgestone.