Britain's James Toseland leaves Laguna Seca disappointed with only a ninth place but said it was a tough race and he tried as hard as he could.
The Tech 3 Yamaha man was fourth on the first lap of the US MotoGP and then settled into a rhythm, battling Dandy De Puniet for sixth place, miles ahead of team-mate Colin Edwards.
“I’m pretty disappointed with that because I feel have put in a lot of effort and done my best to finish only ninth. I got a fantastic start and was fourth but unfortunately it was a tough race after that and I had to ride more defensive than I wanted to," said Toseland.
"With the harder compound tyres I knew I’d have to wait to get some temperature into them and that cost me a few places early on. Once I got into my pace in the 23s I was pretty happy because I’d hoped that would be good enough for a top six finish looking at the times from earlier in the weekend. I had a good long battle with de Puniet but our lap times were almost identical and I tried everything I could to close him down.
"At the end I was just trying to block people from passing me but Spies and Elias got me late on and that is a bit frustrating. On paper ninth doesn’t look like a great result, and it doesn’t feel like much of a reward for the effort that I have put in with my team this weekend. But I really couldn’t
have done anything else and I feel I got the best out of the package I had today. We’ll hopefully be able to come back much stronger after the summer break and be fighting to be back in the top six again where we belong.”