Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V): 2nd
“I’m pretty happy with second place today even though of course I wanted to win in front of the Spanish fans. In the first corner I had a slide which lost me a couple of places and then over the next few laps I had to make up some positions before getting behind Casey. By this point he was quite a way in front and our pace was similar at this stage so I tried really hard to catch him and managed to close the gap. But then I started to have some rear-wheel slides and it wasn’t possible for me stay with him so I thought: ‘Ok, this is my place today.’ Our bike here was struggling more with tyre wear than some of the others, but anyway, second place is not bad and the championship is still alive, even though it will be very difficult to catch Lorenzo. I’d like to say thanks to my team who are working really hard, and I want to maintain this momentum because recently we have been fast at every race.
I’m looking forward to Honda’s home event at Motegi.”

Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini RC212V): 7th
“At the start I was hoping for a better result because I felt good but I have to be satisfied with seventh place. I was running with Spies and Dovizioso over the first seven laps but when I lost touch with them I made a couple of mistakes.
Once Valentino came past I started to ride well again and even tried to attack him but made another mistake. After that there wasn’t much else I could do. Overall it has been a positive weekend and we have taken a step forward compared to other races.”

Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini RC212V): 9th
“It has been a bad weekend for us and the race didn’t go any better. Unfortunately over the first few laps the bike was unpredictable and the front kept pushing. Even when I put together a pace that was faster than the guys in front of me there was no way I could pass them. I haven’t made a pass on the brakes since the start of the season – I can only overtake in direction changes and that shows something is wrong because I have always been a late braker but right now I’m not.
I am really disappointed because things are not improving and we need a little help from Honda because I can’t do anything on my own.”

Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP RC212V): 13th
“As you may understand I am not really happy about my 13th position. My rhythm was good when I was riding alone. At the beginning I lost a lot of time and I could have been faster if I could have overtaken Kallio earlier. I tried it in each corner, but couldn’t. When I finally passed him, because he made a mistake, it was too late to better the result and I am very angry about that.”

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda RC212V): DNF
“Of course I’m really disappointed things ended in this way because my pace in the middle of the race was very good and the battle with Spies was exciting. The crash happened between turns 12 and 13. Spies went in too deep and I tried to overtake him on the inside. That meant I was carrying a little bit more speed through the change of direction and as I flicked from left to right I highsided. I’m really disappointed because we have lost third position in the championship, which is still our target even though scoring zero points today makes this more difficult. Early in the race I made some mistakes and lost contact with the front group, but actually our pace in the middle of the race was very fast. During the battle with Spies we overtook each other three or four times in the last laps and it was fun, but the crash spoiled the day. However, we’ll come back fighting at Motegi because we’ve proved we have the pace to be strong.”

Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda RC212V): DNF
“There was a good group of us, so it was quite a hectic race for me. I didn’t feel too confident in the front end of the bike and then I started to lose the front a few times. I was trying to ride around that when the bike flicked me off. We still aren’t sure why that happened.”

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