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Colin Edwards 2006 Yamaha YZR-M1 
Replica of Colin Edwards 2006 Moto GP Yamaha YZR-M1. Due to licencing issues, this model has been released without the Team logo and the logo of the bike lean over on its side.
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2008-08-17 Rider claims after Brno race
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 Race in the Brno today was the strange one, as we saw many back-markers or midfielders grabbing some position that they did not used to. Also, situation with tyres was another factor that makes Brno race results one time exception - so we should not get carried away in praising achievements of some riders. On the other hand, Brno was race to forget for some usual top performers, so you will find lot on interesting (and funny) things in post-race rider claims...
Valentino Rossi - winner - 43:28.841:
I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice, and with Jeremy we made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well. I lost about half a second getting past Hopkins at the start and Casey was incredibly fast at that stage, like he’d already done ten laps! For a short time I was worried but then, after two laps, I understood that my bike was working very well and that I was fast enough to try to catch him. I had closed a little bit already and gradually the red bike was becoming a bit bigger in front of me, and I think this is when he started to push harder and made his mistake. I was anticipating a very hard battle if I did catch him, so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it – this made things a lot easier for me! After that I just enjoyed riding my bike; my Bridgestone tyres worked very well until the end and my M1 felt very good. Of course I can’t count this as a complete victory because Casey fell, and I am sorry for him, but this is racing and I have to be happy with this result. We are 50 points clear which is a lot and I am very excited to be going to Misano in this situation. However we know that 50 points is still not always enough when you have someone as strong as Casey and so we won’t relax. Now we have two days of testing and we will try some new electronics in order to help me open the throttle earlier and also, of course, test some Bridgestone tyres.
Toni Elias – 2nd:
I am very happy by my performance. Since Germany we have improved a lot also thanks to the new technical material received by Ducati. I also thought I could have done a podium in Laguna Seca but I committed a mistake and I couldn’t make it. Today everything went in the right direction. I am sure that we can maintain the same level for the rest of the season. I heard rumors that wanted me in Superbike next season: I never spoke to anybody in Superbike and I want to remain in MotoGP for many more years. I am happy to work in the Alice Team and with the Pramac Racing structure. If things will go well in this final part of the season I don’t see why I should change Team.
Loris Capirossi - 3rd:
I want to say what a fantastic day this is for me today! After the injury in Barcelona I have not had the opportunity to go quick due to my condition, but all the people around me - including the whole team and Suzuki - stayed really close to me and gave me great support so I am really happy to pay them back with this podium - it actually feels more like a win for me because it means so much! After the break following Laguna, I was able to get some rest and start training again to get myself back in the best condition, and although I am still not 100% I am nearly there and I was able to challenge all weekend. My dream this weekend was to fight for a podium, after Friday I felt I could do that and today I started with a good focus to do my best. This result is for all the team and everybody working with me, because when we make a great result I am really happy, and today I am certainly really happy!
Shinya Nakano - 4th:
We took another step forward with the new bike today although I have to say that it has not been easy to get this result. We came to Brno without any test data but the team did a great job with the set-up. I’m just disappointed I lost positions at the start because I made contact with another rider, but at the same time satisfied to have recovered and finished the race in fourth – a result I can be pleased with.
Anthony West - 5th:
To finish fifth is a really great feeling and it just shows exactly what we are capable of achieving. I got a good start to the race, but I dropped down to sixth after a few laps and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fight back, especially after not having much dry time on the bike here. However, my confidence grew as we went on and I was able to catch up with John and pass him for fourth at the halfway point. The grip levels dropped off towards the end, so there was nothing I could do about Shinya other than to continue lapping consistently to the flag. I felt so much more comfortable on the bike than I have done previously and the Bridgestone tyres definitely had an advantage over some of the other riders. I had to ride really hard today, in fact I didn’t even look at my pit board until halfway through, so there’s still more work to be done as we had to push a lot to get out of the turns fast enough. Thankfully it paid off and fifth place is my best result yet in MotoGP, so I’m really happy.
Chris Vermeulen - 6th:
I got a good start and was scrapping with the Kawasakis – which seemed like they were surprisingly fast today – and got held up by them a bit. I managed to get past Ant West and then started to catch John Hopkins, but I started to have some issues with front grip and had to change the way I was riding the bike. Once I got past John it felt like I had nothing left and the situation was getting worse – which was awful as the race was only about seven laps old! I kept my head down and worked out the best way to ride and how to try to preserve the tyre. At one stage I thought about coming in, but I worked it out and managed to get home in sixth place to get some points. I’d like to congratulate Loris on his podium today. It was good to see him come back like that after his injury and I’m very happy for him!
Marco Melandri - 7th:
The first ten laps were really difficult because I got a bad start and I didn't have a good feeling. I couldn't push the bike on the way in or the way out of the corners because the bike wasn't hooking up and it felt nervous. Gradually as the fuel load lightened and the tyres got up to temperature the grip improved and became more precise. I managed to improve my pace lap by lap and caught the group ahead of me, then made some passes. It's a shame I lost more than ten seconds over the opening laps because we could have had a really good result today.
Alex De Angelis - 8th:
Even if I finished the race as the best of the RC212V satellite riders today’s result isn’t too satisfying because we were expecting to finish in the top six. We weren’t too far off that target but this wasn’t the race we’d imagined. Unfortunately after the first lap, when I lost several positions, I made several passes but lost position to other riders who were faster down the straights. Tomorrow we’ll make the most of the test here at Brno to continue to improve ahead of the San Marino Grand Prix, which is of special importance to me.
Andrea Dovizioso - 9th:
My goal for the race was to be the first Michelin rider home, which is what I have achieved, but things were too difficult to do better. I started fully motivated and wanting to give the maximum and exploit fully the material at our disposal, but today I cannot be satisfied with the result. I had difficulty with the front tyre and was forced to change my style of riding, which meant not being able to exploit my speed in the corners.
Jorge Lorenzo - 10th:
This race is a bit sad for me because we have the potential to do a lot better. However considering what has happened this weekend and, above all, the problems with the front tyre, I think we have done almost as much as we could. At the start I didn’t want to take too many risks and I could feel that the front tyre was getting worse on each lap, but on the other hand the rear tyre was getting better each lap! I know that we have had had problems this weekend but I know that Michelin are working very hard, so now we will try to use the test to make some improvements. I want to say thank you to all of my team for their hard work, congratulate Valentino for his victory and finally also Toni Elias for his podium.
John Hopkins - 11th:
It’s obviously disappointing to finish the race in 11th place, especially after feeling so confident and strong early on. We took a gamble with our tyre choice today and used a rear tyre that nobody else had in their selection. I got a great start to the race and I sat behind the Suzuki riders while they battled things out for third. Unfortunately the tyre began to drop off and at the end of the race the left side just didn’t have any grip. Usually I can ride around a problem like this, but with the knee injury I’m carrying, I couldn’t prop the bike up to compensate for this lack of traction. The positive thing is that we were strong while the tyre was working well, and we achieved a front row start, so we have a goal to aim for in testing over the next few days. During the next two days of testing I’m looking forward to catching up on a lot of the riding I’ve missed through injury, improving the bike further and finding a solution to the problem we had today. I’d also like to congratulate Anthony; it’s great to see him riding like that again and he really deserved the result he achieved.
Sylvain Guintoli – 12th:
This morning everything seemed perfect. I registered very interesting rhythm that would have allowed me to be easily in the top five during the race. Unluckily, after only a few laps, I lost grip with the right side of the front tyre and my lap times were more than a second slower compared to this morning. I don’t know what happened, we are analyzing the situation, but I am very disappointed because we could had have a really good race.
James Toseland - 13th:
It was a difficult race and the result is clearly not where we want to be. I don’t want to be fighting at the back of the top 15, and neither does my team or Yamaha and it is disappointing. All I can do is go out there with whatever I have got underneath me and give it my maximum and I did that. But this team and Yamaha deserve to be higher up and today wasn’t good enough. It would be easy to let my head drop but I have never been that type of rider and I am not going to start now. I was reasonably happy with my start but I had a few moments with the front tyre on the first couple of laps and I soon realised that I was at my maximum and that I wasn’t going to be able to do much more. It is disappointing because I have slipped out of the top ten in the standings and that was one of my big goals before the start of the season. We have got to keep working hard as a team and hope that Michelin can quickly turn it around for the rest of the season so we can try and get back into that top ten and keep the morale up of the team. Colin had even more problems than me so it must have been tough for him, but this is the situation we are in. We will all keep pushing hard and see what we can do.
Colin Edwards - 14th:
I could see straightaway behind James that he was having some issues with the front tyre, which we expected. I still thought I could put a good pace together but it never happened. I just didn’t have the confidence I needed to push harder with the tyres and the more I pushed I didn’t seem to go much faster. James was able to leave me pretty easily as my issues started to get worse but I wanted to stay out there and try my best for my guys at Tech 3 and Yamaha, who as always have been working like crazy to help me this weekend. I thank them for that, but there was nothing else I could do. Towards the end I just decided to take a few more risks and I went a bit quicker, but there was no way I was going to catch anybody. I’ve had a bad run lately but I’m still in contention for fourth in the championship, and I’ll keep fighting. But we need big improvements from Michelin. The good start we had to the season seems like a long way away now, and we have to work with Michelin to try and solve some of the issues because I didn’t enjoy today at all.
Dani Pedrosa - 15th:
This weekend has been a complete disaster – probably the worst of my career. In fact I couldn’t even race today, all I could do was ride; I couldn’t control the bike, I didn’t feel safe. I was riding so slow I felt ashamed. I considered stopping but I stayed out there to get some points. We really need a drastic improvement from the tyres. I had no grip at the front and no grip at the rear, from the first lap to the last. It was therefore impossible for me to push any harder. I almost crashed twice, so I just tried to finish the race. At the end the tyre performance was even worse than during the early laps.
Randy De Puniet - 16th:
Honestly I’m very angry. I made a good start but couldn’t race as I wanted and was struggling a lot for front-end feel. Many riders passed me in the corner entries and in the first laps I lost the front a few times. So I decided to slow down but the feeling with the front was very bad. When I tried to pass Pedrosa in the chicane I crashed out in the gravel but rejoined the race. I suffered the same crash of Friday afternoon and, although my crew worked hard to find a solution, we did not solve the problem with the front tyre.
Casey Stoner - DNF:
Obviously we are all disappointed with this result because our pace in practice was good, everything went very well this morning and we felt we could push out in front. Things were going according to plan until the crash. I was doing the same lap time over and over and I was quite happy with the pace I was running. The crash came out of the blue, that corner was an easy one but I lost the front and it happened very quickly, very suddenly and I didn't manage to save it. It's a hard one to explain and we will look at the data but sometimes this kind of crash happens at this level of racing and it was my mistake! We knew that we needed to win this race - and more - in order to close down Valentino's advantage so this makes the championship very difficult for us. Anything can happen in racing but fifty points is a big gap against such a strong and consistent competitor. Anyway I never throw in the towel, nor does anybody at Ducati, and we will keep fighting until the end. Misano is a home race for the factory and there will be lots of Ducatisti there, so my main thought now is to stay positive and bounce back with a good show for them in two weeks' time.
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