Colin Edwards and James Toseland claimed impressive top six positions for the Monster Tech3 Yamaha team with hard fought performances in today’s dramatic Indianapolis Grand Prix in front 75,000 spectators. Edwards came home a solid fifth with the Texan disappointed not have been closer to the front in his second home race of the season. After Dani Pedrosa crashed out of the lead Edwards was briefly third before he began to struggle with some rear grip issues. Today’s results saw Edwards to retain fifth position in the championship standings.
With a daring early charge from 10th on the grid Briton James Toseland scored his equal best result of the season with sixth place after an thrilling late race battle with Marco Melandri. After Melandri had briefly got ahead on lap eight Toseland was back in sixth on lap 10 and then rebuffed every challenge until Melandri crashed out of seventh position with two laps remaining.
Colin Edwards - Position: 5th - Time: +0’26.254
“It wasn’t as much fun as thought it was going to be, to be honest with you, I had hopes of better result at my home race. I did the same times I did all weekend but I struggled with some grip issues, it just felt like everything was pivoting on the rear, it was like speedway, as soon as I got the bike on the side the rear came around and that is not the fast way. I couldn’t put any load on the rear. At the end of the day we had the same tyres as the guy who won the race so whether it was so mething in our set-up or riding style, I don’t know. All I could was watch Nicky and Andrea walk away from me and I took some big risks on the brakes. Once Nicky got by it became hard to manage and I think we turned a tyre on the rim, I had a lot of vibration over the final ten laps.”
James Toseland - Position: 6th - Time: +0’32.408
“It’s very pleasing to finish in the top six, I know I’m capable of these sort of results and need to be doing it very weekend. It was an entertaining race for me, pushing my way through from tenth on the opening lap and today I don’t think I lost any friends doing that. Later in the race I had a great battle with Marco Melandri until he made a mistake with two laps go, I thought it would be a fight right to the end with him. I didn’t have good feeling in the warm-up so I was little worried for the race but we softened the bike up a little and I was able to keep my pace fr om qualifying. Melandri was really strong in turns one and two but i just kept covering my line, kept my head down and kept pushing. Now I’m really looking forward to Misano next week, a track I know very well from superbikes.”
Herve Poncharal - Team Manager
“A very good weekend for us to have two riders in the top six. Colin had a great start and was right with the front group which was very exciting for us, it was pity that with some small problems he couldn’t follow the pace. And special congratulations to James, it wasn’t an easy weekend for him and he made a very good recovery from tenth on the grid. It was a shame for the show that both Pedrosa and Rossi crashed but for our team we got some very good points to enable us to consolidate fourth position in the Team Championship. And congratulations to Jorge to win after all the problems he has had recently.”
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