Fiat Yamaha Team rider Colin Edwards finished second in the British Grand Prix at Donington Park today, taking his second podium of the season after a fighting ride from pole position. His team-mate Valentino Rossi was disappointed to finish fourth but nonetheless managed to set another record in the process, overtaking Mick Doohan to take the title of most prolific points-scorer ever in the premier class, with a total of 2,303 points. After a brief respite yesterday the British weather closed in again and the race was declared wet, although the rain failed to deter the 84,785 fans who had turned out to see their adopted heroes in action.
Edwards, starting from pole for the second time this season, got a fantastic start and held the lead; whilst Rossi was edged out by Dani Pedrosa and was third into turn one. Pedrosa found his way past Edwards on the first lap but the Texan stayed on his tail and was able to take the lead again on lap five. For the next ten laps things looked promising as Edwards held the lead over Casey Stoner, who had risen to second from seventh on the grid. However as the rain stopped and a dry-line appeared Edwards began to struggle with grip and Stoner came through. Despite keeping up a fairly consistent pace until the end, Edwards was powerless to stay with the Australian and eventually crossed the line 11.768 seconds behind the championship leader. Rossi meanwhile had a somewhat more eventful race, finding himself as far down as eighth at one point and making a small foray off-track on lap eleven.
After fighting back through the order he looked like holding onto the last podium place behind Edwards, but with four laps to go Chris Vermeulen passed him and he was relegated to fourth. Today's race sees the gap from Stoner to Rossi stretched to 26 points, whilst Edwards' haul of twenty points moves him three places up the order to seventh.
Colin Edwards - Position: 2ndTime: +11.768"We had good race! I had a great start, better than any of my practice ones during the weekend, and then I just got my head down and kept pushing lap after lap. My bike was feeling good in the wet but then it started to dry out. I started braking a bit harder and feeling more confident, but then the front locked once into the chicane which gave me a bit of a scare. Then at the next corner, down at the hairpin, I locked it again, ran wide and Casey came through. After that I tried everything but I couldn't stay with him and it was clear that I didn't have the grip he had. It was pretty tough, but then I guess it was tough for everyone! You could see the dry line forming and rain tyres with a dry track don't work well! I just had to pay attention and take care not to spin it too much, using half throttle instead of spinning it up. Anyway, we did the best we could today and it feels good to be back on the podium, so a big thanks to all my guys. We've made a lot of progress this weekend and now we'll carry the momentum on to Assen next week! Hats off to Casey too, he did a great job today."
Valentino Rossi - Position: 4thTime: +21.827"Unfortunately today the conditions were not good for us at all and we had a lot of problems. In the full dry we would have been at our strongest, in full wet we would have been also 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 went during the whole race and then as the track began to dry I had less and less 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 finish and, because we were riding with a wet tyre on a dry track, my tyre was destroyed by the end. Colin did a great job in difficult circumstances so congratulations to him. We've had a very long meeting tonight and now we have to try to improve the situation for Assen."
Davide Brivio - Team Director"We're very happy for Colin to be back on the podium, he did a great job all weekend so well done to him. Now he has found his confidence again and hopefully he can carry on like this. For Valentino it was a very difficult race and he had quite a lot of problems in the difficult conditions. We have some work to do but Colin's result is very encouraging for the whole team and now we go straight to Assen to have the chance to make up for this weekend with Valentino. We'll keep working as hard as we can and hopefully we can get back to our best very quickly."
Disappointing Weekend In Donington For Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 Team In weather conditions more akin to the middle of winter, the Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 had its most disappointing weekend of the 2007 MotoGP season. On a circuit that offers very little grip, the elements did all they could to make the weekend worse with a track temperature that hovered around 20 degrees Celcius with persistent rain present throughout most of the weekend. While the overall result may be extremely hard to swallow for the team, riders Makoto Tamada and Sylvain Guintoli were able to provide the Dunlop engineers with plenty of information that will be utilised for the future. The team will now regroup and head to the legendary Assen circuit in Holland as the championship reaches the halfway point of the season.
Makoto Tamada - Position: 15thTime: +2 lapsThat was a very difficult race and weekend for me. I could not apply the power too hard as on the exit of every corner I was having some very big slides from the rear plus when I was trying to brake for the corners I had no feeling in the front and so in these very bad conditions it was impossible to do anything better.
Sylvain Guintoli - Position: 16thTime: +2 lapsI am extremely disappointed with this weekend as I thought we could get a better result especially seeing it was 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 me as I was too busy looking behind me to see when the leaders would catch me. I had no grip and as soon as I tried to go faster I nearly crashed everytime so I decided to ride to finish the race. I crashed in practice at over 200km/h and I didn't feel like doing that again. I was also getting a lot of wheelspin so I had to change gears while still in the midrange of the powerband. I am disappointed that I failed to score any points as I have in every other race so now we have to put this behind us and hope for better weather in Holland next week
Herve Poncharal - Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 Team ManagerThis has been a very frustrating weekend. We came here expecting a good result in the dry but unfortunately it rained and we were nowhere. The only positive we can take out of this weekend is that our riders did a lot of laps in the wet so both our riders could give a lot of feedback to the Dunlop engineers to improve the wet weather tyres as we are so far behind Hopefully the sun will shine on us in Holland as we have made good progress in the dry and we can continue that improvement next weekend.
Circuit Length: 4023
Weather: Changeable
Race 1 - 30 Laps - MotoGP - Donington Park:1. Casey Stoner - Ducati - AUS 51'40.739
2. Colin Edwards - Yamaha - USA 0'11.768
3. Chris Vermeulen - Suzuki - AUS 0'15.678
4. Valentino Rossi - Yamaha - ITA 0'21.827
5. John Hopkins - Suzuki - USA 0'35.518
6. Randy De Puniet - Kawasaki - FRA 0'36.474
7. Alex Barros - Ducati - BRA 0'38.094
8. Daniel Pedrosa - Honda - ESP 0'38.992
9. Alex Hofmann - Ducati - GER 0'39.239
10. Marco Melandri - Honda - ITA 1'1.526
11. Anthony West - Kawasaki - AUS 1'6.486
12. Toni Elias - Honda - ESP1 '34.074
13. Kurtis Roberts - KR212V - USA -1 Laps
14. Shinya Nakano - Honda - JPN -1 Laps
15. Makoto Tamada - Yamaha - JPN -2 Laps
16. Sylvain Guintoli - Yamaha - FRA -2 Laps
Rider Standings:
1. Casey Stoner - Ducati - AUS 165
2. Valentino Rossi - Yamaha - ITA 139
3. Daniel Pedrosa - Honda - ESP 106
4. Chris Vermeulen - Suzuki - AUS 88
5. John Hopkins - Suzuki - USA 83
6. Marco Melandri - Honda -ITA 81
7. Colin Edwards - Yamaha - USA 65
8. Alex Barros - Ducati - BRA 60
9. Loris Capirossi - Ducati - ITA 57
10. Toni Elias - Honda - ESP 49
11. Alex Hofmann - Ducati - GER 45
12. Nicky Hayden - Honda - USA 41
13. Randy De Puniet - Kawasaki - FRA 40
14. Shinya Nakano - Honda - JPN 21
15. Carlos Checa - Honda - ESP 20
16. Makoto Tamada - Yamaha - JPN 17
17. Sylvain Guintoli - Yamaha - FRA 16
Team Standings:1. Ducati Marlboro Team 222
2. FIAT Yamaha Team 204
3. Rizla Suzuki 171
4. Repsol Honda Team 147
5. Honda Gresini 130
6. Pramac D'Antin 105
7. Kawasaki Racing Team 54
8. Tech3 Yamaha 33
9. Konica Minolta Honda 21
10. Honda LCR 20
11. Team Roberts 7
Manufacturer Standings:1. Ducati 168
2. Yamaha 146
3. Honda 133
4. Suzuki 111
5. Kawasaki 49
6. KR212V 7
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