Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow wasn't able to use the new settings he found at the recent Barcelona test in today's Assen MotoGP round as a lack of dry track time didn't allow for more thorough work and he gambled on using his old setup which means he struggles for the first five laps of the race.
The Isle of man resident, who narrowly missed out on second after a last-lap near-miss with Marc Marquez, says his new setup is very similar to the one which carried Valentino Rossi to his first win in more than two years but today he again had to wait until the fuel load went down before he made progress.
"I'm disappointed not to win but I'm happy to be on the podium. We let the race go in the first five laps, it's as simple as that. We took a big risk with the setting. I thought I could manage this bike in the first five laps but we never had the time or a plan to be able to change our setting for the race this weekend.
"With the tricky conditions, we lost some time. Friday afternoon we were riding around with a dodgy track conditions, this morning again. I felt I was able to come strong at the end of the race but I knew the first laps would be tough and we lost too much. We will now do what we wanted to do for the next race.
"To finish on the podium and nearly 30 seconds ahead of two factory bikes so I can't complain. I got beaten by two guys who were stronger than me on the day.
"The setting change Valentino has is very interesting for our fuel load as well. It was the way we went in the Barcelona test and we were OK with it. Here is it a completely different circuit so we had to run with up towards that but we never had time. The change that Valentino has made means he can use more corner entry speed in those first laps
"We wanted to try something that I believe was stronger. It's to make the bike turn. The bike is really neutral and we need to make it more towards the front. I didn't have a problem stopping but I had a problem entering the corner. I was running wide so much that I couldn't change direction, the bike was so heavy in the first laps and I couldn't roll through the corner."
