Dani Pedrosa: "Today was also very important for the  championship, I am now five points closer to the  lead, but there are still many races ahead of us, so we need to keep pushing and be consistent. We  had a few issues in practice here, so my team was thinking what they could do and they made a small adjustment before the race that improved the bike  and helped me to run that pace – a big thanks to  them. Now we have two days of tests which will be very important for the next few races.”

Valentino Rossi: "I think that this was quite a good race! It’s a long time since we’ve had a good fight for the top positions like that and today it was like last year with Stoner, but for second instead of first place! I was able to come out on top this year and I am honestly very happy with today’s result. After three almost perfect races, yesterday was a very hard day for us but last night we had a very good meeting and today we were able to be much more competitive. My target was the podium so to come second is excellent. I want to watch the race on TV now because I had a lot of fun today and made some good overtakes, with my M1 and my Bridgestone tyres working very well to the end."

Casey Stoner: "Looking at the race set-up from yesterday we were confident that we could do some pretty good times today and I felt it was a race we could win but for some reason from the first lap I kept losing the rear on entry into the corners. That made me lose confidence because at this circuit there are a lot of places where you need to brake and enter at the same time so I missed a lot of braking markers, made some mistakes and lost too much ground to Dani."

Colin Edwards: "I got a fantastic start and thought ‘brilliant here we go.’ But from the second corner I had a problem and to be honest we are scratching our heads a little bit. I struggled because early on I was doing low 43s but then I just couldn’t maintain that pace. I’d throw the bike in on the brakes but it would be sideways and I found myself having to change my style like I did in Mugello to help. I’d stop it hard on the brakes, turn it into the corner and then pick it up to accelerate, but in some places where I would normally use second gear I was using third to baby it out of the corners."

James Toseland: "I’m a little bit mad with myself because like in Mugello, I believe there was a fourth here. I got an okay start and was about seventh but Valentino came by in the first corner. It was a clean move but he left it late, so we were side-by-side going in and there was no way I could turn in because he was there. There was nothing wrong with the pass but I had to go straight on and that lost me the gap.  Whether you are doing the same times as the rest of them or not, you can only pull back small amounts of time. We changed the bike this morning and it took a couple of laps to get used to the feel of it. I’d been running soft tyres most of the weekend doing good lap times but going a bit harder for the race, I just didn’t have as much grip at the start and it took me a
couple of laps to get used to it and I didn’t push it hard enough."

Andrea Dovizioso: "This was a great race which gave me a lot of satisfaction. Since practice I tested many starts to be ready to go when the red lights went off which is why I had such a good start so I was able to be fast to be able to gain some positions. This is why at the end of lap one I was second. Dani was incredibly fast today, but I was able to stay with Valentino and Casey and was able to keep that pace. The level of competition was very high but when Vale passed Stoner I lost half a second and sadly I was not able to regain this time. Fourth is the same result as Qatar, but the value of this race is different: that was my first MotoGP race but now I have more experience, so this is why I’m looking at improved race-by race results."

Nicky Hayden: "We knew the race was going to be tough. Our bike has worked quite well when we had grip but something with the set-up right now we’re not getting the tyre life we need. It was okay in the beginning but I couldn’t maintain the pace. Something in the set-up is hurting the tyre life, it’s quite frustrating. We were in there early and thought we might be on for a good result and then we lost touch and went backward. The rear brake went out towards the end which didn’t help things. Eighth place is not what we want."