[mickey]

Dani Pedrosa
Position: 3rd - Best lap: 1m 43.376s – World Championship position – 98 pts

Front tyre: 16.0" hard compound Michelin
Rear tyre: 16.5" hard compound Michelin

“Third is OK and I finished right with the leaders so I’m happy for that. It was difficult to keep up with Casey and Valentino, especially in the middle of the race, but with 10 laps remaining I was able to get close again. I was actually enjoying watching them because they weren’t overtaking each other in typical places and that’s why I wanted to get in there too! However, in one part of the track I was losing a lot and I needed the other part of the track to recover, so all the time I was right there with them, but I couldn’t fight with them. I just had to wait until the last laps and hope I could find something but I wasn’t quite close enough. I want to say thank you to all the crowd who came this weekend because they gave me a lot of support and created a great atmosphere. I’ve had some good results in recent races and the performance is steadily getting better so I hope to keep improving for the next races.”

Nicky Hayden

Position: 11th - Best lap: 1m 43.987s – World Championship position 11th – 41 pts

Front tyre: 16.0" hard compound Michelin
Rear tyre: 16.5" hard compound Michelin

“I felt pretty good going into the race and through this weekend I’d been getting faster and faster in every session and going up a few places. I got a decent start in the race and I was looking to get a better result here because my pace in the warm-up was reasonable too. The race was a tough one though. Somewhere along the way the rear tyre became unbalanced and started to vibrate and chatter really badly – especially in the last five or ten laps I could hardly ride it. After that I just started losing positions and it wasn’t a fun race because it was hard to tip into any of the corners. We didn’t need that problem today so we’ll just have to look into why it happened and move on to the next race at Donington.”



John Hopkins:

“I’ve got to that point where I am now disappointed not to be on the podium, obviously I’m happy to be in the top five but I want more! It was a tough race and I held in there with the first three for as long as I could, but with about eight laps to go I started to lose a bit of pace and as hard as I tried I was losing that little bit more each lap - so I had to settle for fourth place. We’re really happy with the Suzuki and Bridgestone tyre package this season and the tyres are working a lot better than they did last year - so no complaints there at all. Now we have a couple of days testing here and I am looking forward to bettering my times and then moving on to the next two tracks that I think will really suit the GSV-R800. I am sure that we will soon have a good chance of getting on the podium every weekend!”

Chris Vermeulen:

“I got a reasonable start from the fourth row, but then got boxed in a bit and dropped back a couple of places. I had a tough fight with Alex Barros early on and found it really hard to get past his Ducati - as it’s pretty quick in a straight line! I got through the field and the bike felt very good and consistent right till the end. I had a battle with Loris Capirossi on the last lap, and although I got past him he just went by me on the next straight. Seventh place from 11th is not too bad, and we now have lots of work to do in the next couple of days to make sure we are stronger for Donington!”