Britain's James Toseland faced a steep learning curve at the German MotoGP round this afternoon – not only was he at a track he had never raced on before, it was his first fully wet race aboard the Tech 3 Yamaha.
Toseland qualified on the fourth row of the grid yesterday and made a tremendous start at the Sachsenring, pushing himself up to fifth by the first turn. However, he struggled to cope with the foul conditions and slowly slipped down the order as more experienced men adapted to the rain and ended up in 11th.
“That was my first wet MotoGP race and I’ve got to admit that while I feel I’ve learned a lot, it was a difficult afternoon. I got an unbelievable start and at the first corner I was fifth and nearly took fourth," he said.
"I thought I was in business but pretty much straightaway I knew it was going to be difficult to try and go away with the leading group. I had a couple of moments on the opening lap and I started losing places quite quickly. The frustrating thing was I couldn’t do anything to respond. I didn’t want to push too hard because I’d seen Jorge Lorenzo crash in front of me, so I knew I wasn’t the only one struggling for rear grip.
"I think that coupled with a lack of experience of riding this bike in the rain made it tough. I kind of just got stuck at the pace I was running and couldn’t really go any faster. I’m not going to blame anybody because I’m having a bit of a bad period but a positive from the weekend is I feel we have taken some big strides with the set-up of the bike.
"We have eliminated a lot of problems and the team has done a great job, so I am looking forward to getting back closer to where I know I am capable of being and the team is capable of being at Laguna Seca. It is a track I know well, and I go there in a positive frame of mind as always despite having this tough run."