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Colin Edwards heads into Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix hoping to fight for his second podium of the 2009 MotoGP season.
The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider will start fifth on the grid behind MotoGP's big four of Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa.
However Pedrosa's factory Honda ran out of fuel on the slow-down lap at Misano, while question marks remain over Stoner's endurance, having missed the past three races due to fatigue problems.
“If you're the next best rider on the timesheets behind the four best in the world then you're not doing a bad job. And I felt like I did a good job today,” said the Texan, once again the top satellite rider.
“I genuinely believe I can fight for the podium tomorrow,” he stated. “I know it will be really difficult but Dani had some problems at the end of the race in Misano and nobody is sure whether Casey is going to be able to keep his pace for 28-laps.
“I'm sure it will be a good race though and I'm looking forward to having a strong finish to the year.”
Team-mate James Toseland will start his second and final Portuguese Grand Prix for Tech 3 from twelfth position.
“It has been a little bit frustrating today because we decided to change the geometry and the wheelbase of the bike, but it meant we had less time to find the ideal set-up,” explained the Englishman, who will return to World Superbike next season. “Towards the end of the session we found a good set-up and while 12th on the grid is not bad, I feel I could have been at least one row further forward.”
source: crash.net