[mickey]

Dani Pedrosa


Front tyre: 16.0" Hard Michelin slick
Rear tyre: 16.5" Hard Michelin slick

“I’m very very happy with the result today. This is a victory I’d like to dedicate to the Repsol Honda Team and to HRC because they have been working really hard for a long time without getting the results and I’m very happy they’ve kept motivation and put in maximum effort at every race. Now they have some reward. Also I’m pleased for the fans because they’ve given me great support even when I wasn’t winning. The race went very well obviously. I made a good start, pushed hard from the beginning and was able to open up a gap and control things from the front. The tyres were really good today and Michelin did a very good job, especially as some riders were having difficulties. Towards the end of the race the gap was big so I could take it relatively easy, which I was grateful for because it was very hot out there. The result closes the gap slightly in the championship which is good, but the really important thing about today is that we are winning again. Hopefully we can move on from this result and continue getting stronger.”

Nicky Hayden

Front tyre: 16.0" Hard Michelin slick
Rear tyre: 16.5" Hard Michelin slick
“It’s great to be on the podium after what started as a really tough weekend. The team did a great job overnight and made some big improvements to the machine. I came out in the warm-up and it was a lot quicker so even though I was starting from 14th I still had some confidence for the race. I made a decent start – not as good as the one at Assen – but I made up a few places into the first corner. Then I heard a strange noise from the bike and slowed for a couple of laps trying to figure out if it was a problem. It didn’t seem to make any difference though so I just got my head down and started picking up places. The tyres worked really well today, so a big thanks to Michelin. It’s a good result ahead of Laguna but I need to put the whole weekend together on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We lost almost all of Friday with problems and Saturday didn’t go much better which cost us a lot. Dani rode really well to win the race and two riders on the podium is a really good result for the Repsol Honda Team. Now I’m just going to go home to the U.S. GP, enjoy the race and try to have some fun at Laguna.

LORIS CAPIROSSI
"It's been a long time, but I'm back! My team worked really hard here to find the best solution for the race. We changed the weight distribution, putting more weight on the front to give me more confidence going into the turns. The first half of the season was tough but I hope that we have now found a good way to go quick for the rest of the season. My thanks also to the Bridgestone guys, because we worked hard to choose the best race tyres, deciding to use a different rear from most of the other Bridgestone riders. At the start of the race I didn't push too hard, my tactic was to save the tyres, so I stayed behind Marco [Melandri] in fourth place. Later on I was able to continue my rhythm and move forward. I knew Nicky (Hayden) was coming during the last laps but I had enough to hold on."

CASEY STONER,

"At the start of the race I was pretty happy sitting behind Dani. He was able to find a little more traction than me in most parts and he had a bit more confidence in his bike through a lot of the turns, so I was just trying to stay there or thereabouts and see what happened at the end of the race. I didn't want to push too much harder, I was slowly pulling a gap on Melandri behind me and I thought I really want to save my tyres for the end. Then unfortunately we lost some rear grip and we weren't able to keep the same lap times, so we slowly started to drop through the pack, but we ended up fifth. Today was a damage limitation exercise. Dani [Pedrosa, the race winner] rode a great race, he was untouchable today. Towards the end Marco and John seemed to have a lot more grip than me in a few places, anyway, I fought them off and we were able to keep fifth position which is a few more points. I'm kind of disappointed, I felt we could have had a minimum of second today, reasonably easy, so we'll just have to come back at the next race and try to be stronger and iron out our weak points."

Colin Edwards

"The beginning of that race was pretty tough, I almost crashed out a few times and it felt like I almost had too much grip on the rear! As time went on though I started to feel better and better and when Hayden passed me back again it made me pretty determined to keep pushing. Suddenly I looked up and there were three of them in front of me and at that stage I felt like the podium was a possibility. Getting past Stoner and Melandri was fine but I couldn't quite get back to Hayden which was a pity. A podium would have been nice but, after yesterday's qualifying, I'm pretty happy with fourth; it's my best ever finish here by miles. It was an exhausting race and you don't realise till you cross the finish line how much strain thirty laps around here puts on the left side of your body - my shoulder's pretty sore now! I want to say a big thank you to Michelin, my team and Yamaha because they've had to work really hard this weekend to find a way to make things come together and they did a great job. We knew this morning that we'd found a good package and to finish fourth after starting thirteenth is great. We're heading for Laguna on a high!"

Valentino Rossi

"Unfortunately I made a mistake today and I want to say sorry to everyone - my team, Yamaha and of course all my fans. I lost some places at the start and had to wait a lap before I could start to push, but everything was feeling very good. Getting past de Puniet was hard because in the part of the track where it's best to overtake he was very fast. Finally I made my move and I made a great pass but I made a mistake and lost the front. I'm so disappointed because today our package was working very well and we missed the chance to make up a lot of points on Stoner. We know from Pedrosa and Colin's performance that the Michelin tyres worked well until the end and I'm sad that we weren't there to fight. Luckily Stoner was only fifth so the points situation is not as bad as it could have been. I'm very glad we only have seven days until the next race because right now I'm feeling quite bad, but very determined for America!"