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2007-06-25  Rider claims after Donington race
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Around 85,000 spectators saw great race at rainy Donington Park, withCasey Stoner once again scoring dominant victory after not so greatstart. From rider perspective, race must have been much more exciting,specially due to unforgiving nature of slippery Donington surface. Readrider claims after the race. Casey Stoner - race winner: This proves to people that the Ducatidoesn't just have power. We've been improving the bike and now itdoesn't have any particular weak points, we just need to improve it asa complete package. Obviously today it was the best bike out there. Igot a perfect jump at the start, a perfect clutch release, but then Imust've hit a white line and it spun up straight away. I was panickinga little bit because everybody was zooming past and I thought I'd belast into the first corner. We still got in there in a reasonableposition and we were able to pick our way through. Colin seemed to benice and smooth, but I knew I could go quicker. Then I saw the trackgetting drier and drier. I was worried about destroying the rear tyre,so I started going over all the wet patches. When we got to the lastfive laps the tyre still had a pretty good feeling and it looked prettygood at the end of the race, considering it was our softest option. I'mnot looking at the championship yet, I'm just enjoying all these raceswhether I win or don't finish on the podium. It's just nice to be outthere, I've got the confidence in myself and in the bike to really getinvolved in the race and really enjoy it. Colin Edwards - 2nd: We had good race! I had a greatstart, better than any of my practice ones during the weekend, and thenI just got my head down and kept pushing lap after lap. My bike wasfeeling good in the wet but then it started to dry out. I startedbraking a bit harder and feeling more confident, but then the frontlocked once into the chicane which gave me a bit of a scare. Then atthe next corner, down at the hairpin, I locked it again, ran wide andCasey came through. After that I tried everything but I couldn't staywith him and it was clear that I didn't have the grip he had. It waspretty tough, but then I guess it was tough for everyone! You could seethe dry line forming and rain tyres with a dry track don't work well! Ijust had to pay attention and take care not to spin it too much, usinghalf throttle instead of spinning it up. Anyway, we did the best wecould today and it feels good to be back on the podium, so a big thanksto all my guys. We've made a lot of progress this weekend and now we'llcarry the momentum on to Assen next week! Hats off to Casey too, he dida great job today. Chris Vermeulen - 3rd: It was very wet to start with andthen dried out later on and that made the conditions very difficult.But my team and Bridgestone deserve full marks for picking the besttyres for today – they certainly knew what they were doing! I also wantgive my crew an extra special thank-you because for the second dayrunning I crashed heavily in the morning and they again managed to getthe bike rebuilt in time, so thanks guys! As far as the race went, Ifelt comfortable early on, but then had some trouble seeing through myvisor. A couple of riders came past me and I ran off the track, I wasstruggling to see so much that I could have hit a wall or a spectatoror anything and not have known! When the rain stopped I was able tolift my visor up a bit and that cleared the misting and I was able topush harder again. I passed John and Valentino and very nearly caughtColin but I ran out of laps. I am very happy to be on the podium andnow let’s go and do it again – preferably in the dry! Valentino Rossi - 4th: Unfortunately today the conditionswere not good for us at all and we had a lot of problems. In the fulldry we would have been at our strongest, in full wet we would have beenalso quite good, but with a drying track like this we struggled a lot.I made a mistake and ran off the track when I was going the best I wentduring the whole race and then as the track began to dry I had less andless grip; it seems that this year, when the conditions aren't perfect,we suffer a lot. I had to go very carefully just to be able to finishand, because we were riding with a wet tyre on a dry track, my tyre wasdestroyed by the end. Colin did a great job in difficult circumstancesso congratulations to him. We've had a very long meeting tonight andnow we have to try to improve the situation for Assen. John Hopkins - 5th: Firstly congratulations to Chris, itis great to see a Suzuki on the podium again, I wish it had been me buthe is pretty good in the wet! I got a decent start to the race and hada couple of battles early on with other riders. As the rain stoppedfalling it created a dry line which was difficult for me becausealthough most riders take that line it’s not the one that I alwaystake! For the most part I’m pleased with the result; we finished in thetop-five again and got some good points. We need to get a run of dryraces now because I think with the Suzuki and Bridgestone package canbe competitive wherever we go. I hope it will be dry at Assen nextweekend as that is a place I really enjoy and I want to get a goodresult there so I can climb up that championship table. Randy de Puniet - 6th: That was a hard race and I was veryhappy to see the flag! The first few laps felt a bit slow but I foundit difficult to improve as I didn’t want to make a mistake. Tyres werea problem at the end, with the track becoming dry, and it was difficultto control the machine. Grip wasn’t good but it was the same foreverybody and, overall, the bike worked well in the difficultconditions. I finished in sixth position and, for me, it was my bestrace because it was so, so hard, so I’m very happy. It’s great for meand the team to continue to do well after the result in Barcelona. Alex Barros  - 7th: I’m quite satisfied for the race.Honestly speaking, I hoped for an even better result, but because of myposition on the starting grid and the inclement track conditions, wecouldn’t do a lot more. I started well, but when I sped up, the bikestarted to slip and I lost some positions. At the beginning my racepace was good, in fact I started to push and I was able to overtakePedrosa and arrive very close to Loris who was riding so fast.Unfortunately during the race, the asphalt became to dry and I start tohave some difficulties. Maybe the Bridgestone front tyre we chose wastoo soft and didn’t help me to ride well, but on the contrary, the rearbecame increasingly better and gave me an important help. To race withthese conditions is always difficult, but I gave my best to obtain thebest possible result. Dani Pedrosa - 8th: At the start of the race things weregoing quite well and I was able to lead the race and felt quitecomfortable. After few laps the track was becoming drier and it turnedout we’d chosen a rear tyre that was too soft for those conditions andI just couldn’t maintain the pace. This was definitely a disappointingrace for us, although we had a promising performance in practice andqualifying which is positive. Alex Hofmann - 9th: If I look at my result I’m satisfied,the ninth position is not so bad for us, but if I consider the wholerace, there are certainly areas which we can work on further in thefuture. I made a good start to recover four positions, but I could notsucceed to attack the other riders that were in front of me. After somelaps, I started to have a good race pace and I could see my team-mateAlex Barros and Dani Pedrosa were not so far from me, but I wasn’t ableto overtake them because I made a mistake in the last turn and I lostprecious time. Marco Melandri - 10th: We tried a few set-up modificationsin the warm-up and improved the feeling on the front but couldn’t dothe same on the rear. When the track was really wet I struggled becausethe bike was sliding a lot. Then as it started to dry out the situationimproved because the bike felt more balanced. The lap times show thatbecause I went from doing a 1m 46.4s to a 1m 41.4s on the last lap.   Anthony West - 11th: I felt really strong in the wet andit didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard. Nicky Hayden crashed rightin front of me in the same place a few laps before and there was nogrip there. I’d struggled with it all weekend. But the rear came roundso quickly and I don’t really know what happened. After that, when thetrack started drying out, I found it hard to get any traction andcouldn’t lay the power down. Later, it started to feel better but bythen it was too late to make a move back on Melandri. I’m disappointedI crashed because I wanted to get a good result for these guys but I’mhappy I finished and got some points. Toni Elias - 12th: It’s been a difficult weekend and ithasn’t ended as we wanted. I struggled in the race because I couldn’tget the tyre up to temperature and find grip. I had problems brakingand ran wide a few times, which made me lose time. When the track beganto dry I was able to set the fastest lap of the race. The positivething is we’ve gathered a lot of information in the wet which we’ll beable to use together with Bridgestone and try to solve some of theproblems we’ve had this weekend. Kurtis Roberts - 13th: When I started catching guy I feltgood. Then maybe four or five laps after, when a dry line wasdeveloping, the bike started moving around a lot on full lean, and wasgetting worse and worse. The track was so dry in some places, and wetin others. I was searching for water to cool the tyre down. We pickedtoo soft a rear. It was great when it was wet, but once it starteddrying up it was terrible. Shinya Nakano - 14th: On the first lap I had a slide withthe rear tyre and I had to catch it before I fell, this meant I lost acouple of places. For the first ten laps things were OK, but then theconditions began to change and the track started to dry out. This meantthat I could not push as hard as I would have liked. Makoto Tamada - 15th: That was a very difficult race andweekend for me. I could not apply the power too hard as on the exit ofevery corner I was having some very big slides from the rear plus whenI was trying to brake for the corners I had no feeling in the front andso in these very bad conditions it was impossible to do anything better. Sylvain Guintoli - 16th: I am extremely disappointed with thisweekend as I thought we could get a better result especially seeing itwas my birthday today but with the weather it was not going to happen.I couldn't push too hard or actually fight with anybody in front of meas I was too busy looking behind me to see when the leaders would catchme. I had no grip and as soon as I tried to go faster I nearly crashedeverytime so I decided to ride to finish the race. I crashed inpractice at over 200km/h and I didn't feel like doing that again. I wasalso getting a lot of wheelspin so I had to change gears while still inthe midrange of the powerband. I am disappointed that I failed to scoreany points as I have in every other race so now we have to put thisbehind us and hope for better weather in Holland next week. Nicky Hayden - 17th: The bike felt really good early inthe race and I was trying to be a little bit patient when a few guyscame past and I started going back and forth. Still, I felt like Icould go towards the front and I was enjoying the race. Then I just gotin a little bit hot at the top of the hill and lost the front. It sucksto crash out of the race but it wasn’t as if I crashed while goingbackwards and struggling – at least I was up front and so I’m going totake the positives from this weekend. Carlos Checa  - DNF: After four laps I had a betterfeeling and was able to pass Melandri and was hoping to improve my laptimes and gain some confidence. But I lost the front at turn eight justas I was starting to push and I’m not sure why, maybe a little too muchfront brake. It’s a pity, in the dry I was competitive, but today itrained and I want to forget this race.

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