Rider claims after the race

Dani Pedrosa - winner:
I’m very happy because we are back winning races and it’s a great feeling. It wasn’t easy today because when the race is stopped and restarted like that, sometimes you don’t have the same feeling on the machine in the second part. Also you get nervous again on the grid and it’s possible you won’t have the same pace after the restart. But it went very well for us in both races. In the first one I was very close to Lorenzo and the pace was good, but then they stopped the race and we looked at each other saying, “Why?”. It was even better in the second part. We just made one small change with the rear suspension to get a bit more traction, but we didn’t change the tyre because we didn’t have any new tyres left - we went with the same ones. I made another good start and in the first laps after Lorenzo had passed me I was pushing very to try to take him back. I couldn’t do it with my first attempt, but when I got a second chance I just went for it. Then it was a great feeling to stretch ahead and get the victory - the team deserve it. This victory is even better than the one in Italy because at Mugello I just went away in front and there was no battle with anybody, but here I was battling with Lorenzo in the first and second races, and I finally beat him, so this is even more important. Also before the race we were not 100 per cent sure about what the weather would do, but it stayed clear and finally the weekend has ended perfectly. I was really looking forward to wear the Spain shirt on the podium. It was difficult to get it because it wasn’t in the shops and I really wanted to celebrate a win like that. I also want to thank the team because they worked really well this weekend, the bike was very good from Friday onwards and this is the form we need so we can to keep this consistency going from now on.

Jorge Lorenzo - 2nd:
It's always difficult when a race is split like this and I think I didn't ride quite as well in the second race as I felt I had been doing in the first. Dani was very, very strong and I was on the limit trying to stay ahead. When he passed me I tried briefly to stay with him but he was much faster than me today and I was going to have to take a lot of risks to stay with him; the safest thing for me to do was finish second and take 20 points for the championship. I am happy because I never really liked this track and now I've been second here two years in a row. Now we go to Laguna and I am very excited about racing there again.

Casey Stoner - 3rd:
In the first part of the race I didn’t have such a good feeling and I was doing everything I could to stay with Dani and Jorge but tenth by tenth they were pulling away from me. So, for the second part of the race we changed to a tyre we’d already used yesterday and I immediately found more grip and was able to run faster lap times. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get past Dovi at the start so the front two opened a gap and by the time I got up to third place they were gone. We saw in the first race that Valentino’s pace was a little better than ours and that proved to be the case again in the second race. He was taking big chunks of time out of me and to be honest once he got past I didn’t think I’d be able to follow. I tried really hard to stay in there and we had a good battle with a lot of nice passes. I tried one last time at the bottom of the hill, where he tried to close the line on me but I was already there. We touched but it was a good, clean fight and I’m just pleased to come away with a podium. We had hoped to be a little closer to the front here but we’re happy with this.
    
Valentino Eossi - 4th:
I didn't expect this! I thought it was maybe possible to make fourth or fifth place but I thought it would be very difficult. In the end I was fourth but I had a great battle with Casey and I was so close to the podium, so this is a fantastic result after missing four races. I need some more kilometres to really recover the feeling and feel completely okay with the bike again, but I think I did a great job and this was a very good comeback, better than we could wish for. I felt a bit of pain in my shoulder but more in the leg when changing direction, but at the end the battle with Casey was such fun that I didn't think about it. Unfortunately though he just got the better of me on the last corner! Thanks to all my team for helping me come back and be competitive like this, we will try to do even better in Laguna.

Andrea Dovizioso - 5th:
I really gave it everything today so of course I cannot be happy to finish fifth, especially after qualifying in fourth. Simply I was not fast enough to stay with the top riders today and in fact I was riding very aggressively and maybe even overriding a little to try and stay with them. When you do this you use up the tyre more quickly and also use more energy so I knew it wasn’t the right way, but I had to try to stay with the frontrunners. This weekend we didn’t quite find the right electronics set-up and machine settings, and between the first and second parts of the race we tried to change some electronics settings because the set-up was not 100 per cent in the first part. I was losing a lot in turn seven, turn 12 and on the straight because I didn’t have the perfect set-up to use all the potential of the bike. Now I’m just looking forward to Laguna Seca next week and to getting right up front and being fully competitive again. My compliments go to Dani today. He rode at an incredible pace and the win is good for the team.