Casey Stoner (winner): “I’m not quite there yet but I am almost at 100 per cent fitness. However, I am not surprised by winning here as I felt great physically and definitely better than last year. However, at the end of the race I was suffering a little, bit especially my right leg because of the constant braking. Everything went really well for me except in the last six laps when the front wheel started to suffer wear and tear.”
Valentino Rossi (2nd): “We have made worse starts to a season than this, so I have to be content with the performance. I was fast enough and able to stay within two seconds of him (Stoner) but the front wheel was really badly worn and I nearly fell two or three times. Therefore I decided to slow down. The second-half of the race wasn’t great but I am still happy.”
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Jorge Lorenzo (3rd): “We weren’t competitive enough to win. It was really frustrating to be so far in arrears of the two leaders in particular on this circuit in which I have had quite a lot of success.”
Andrea Dovizioso (5th): “I didn’t start well but I was able to overtake some riders and get into third position. During the first three laps the machine was performing really well - as it had during practice - and I tried to keep in contact with Valentino, but then I started struggling with the front. It was folding entering the corners and, later, also mid-corner, so I couldn’t turn as I would have liked. I had to slow down and compensate by turning with the rear tyre. We never had this issue during practice or the pre-season tests, so we need to understand what happened.”
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Dani Pedrosa (11th): “Overall I’m happy because of my progress over the weekend. I improved in every session and I’m glad to have come here and scored five points - though I’m also slightly disappointed because it could even have been ten or eleven. I got a good start and the race was going very well at the beginning. After seven or eight laps, though, I had started to get some vibration with the front wheel which became more severe as the race progressed.”
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