Andrea Dovizioso has said that he is enjoying his ‘safe’ battles with Marc Marquez, despite losing out to the MotoGP World Champion elect on the final corner in Buriram.

The Italian led from the half way point of the race, before the Repsol Honda man fought with three laps remaining but Dovizioso didn’t let Marquez settle out front. The Spaniard ultimately got the move done and held on despite a late block pass attempt on the final corner, Dovizioso had to settle for second best on the day.

“It’s not easy because we’re on the limit and it’s easy to make a mistake or to be more aggressive than you have to be,” said the factory Ducati rider.

“But I am always trying in my career to do that, and it’s happened with Marc, and with most of the riders, because I am not the kind of rider who tries to create a problem. Yes I can be aggressive, but not overly.

“This is good when the race is like this. A lot of overtaking, but also trying to be safe. So I am happy if this will continue like this.”

Despite having good pace all weekend, to be fighting for the win until the very last corner is something that Dovizioso said was a bit of a surprise to him and Ducati, especially with the tyre issues he was faced with.

“It was a bit better than what we expected,” he said. “Yes the speed was there with good grip, but in this kind of condition with this kind of track where the consumption is very high, even more than Aragon today, in the past we couldn’t finish the race and try to make the podium or try to fight for the victory.

“So I think we did another big step, bigger than Aragon. What we understood in Aragon, it worked here and this is one of the reasons we were fighting until the last corner with Marc.”

When pressed more about the tyre issues and how he found a way around them, Dovizioso said: “To try to improve that you need to work on the set up in the electronics. It’s not easy to find something better and we are working the details, trying to understand.

“When you race with some other riders you can have some important feedback and when you explain in a right way to the engineer, that’s the way to try to fix something. It’s very hard but it’s what everybody is doing and what we are doing in a good way, I think.”