U.S rider Nicky Hayden placed first with his fellow countryman Colin Edwards taking a well fought second place after a long and hard battle with Valentino Rossi who took the final podium position.
Hayden, who until today's race has never stood on the top step of the Moto GP podium, spoke of how it felt to win his first race in front of his home crowd...
"I can honestly say that this is a dream come true for me. You spend your whole life rehearsing the speech for a day like this but now it has happened I can't find the words to describe how I feel. It hasn't been easy for me in Moto GP over the past two seasons but every dog has its day and this was mine. Hopefully it can be the start of bigger things from now on."Colin Edwards commented...
"I made another bad start and ended up with two riders making a sandwich of me into turn one. They had my handlebars on each side and just carried me into the corner so I thought it was going to end in a big mess. Once I got clear of the group I got my head down and pushed as hard as I could to pass Valentino. At that point I still had something left to try and catch Nicky but every time I closed the gap he responded, so hats off to him. When the tyres went off I was just hanging on to finish the race. I knew I had an advantage of around two seconds over Valentino but on the last lap I looked at my board and it said 0.6. I guessed it must be a mistake but I then looked over my shoulder in turn two and he was right there! I thought "oh no, not on the last lap!" I gave everything I had left to hold him off and came close to crashing a few times so second place is really pleasing."Valentino Rossi remarked...
"I lost some time during practice trying to learn the circuit so the bike was not at 100% today, and also our tyre choice was not perfect. Anyway, Nicky rode very hard and it was impossible to catch him today. I knew Colin was coming but I didn't realize how close he was and he caught me by surprise in the Corkscrew. I lost some time there but at the end he lost some of his rhythm and I tried to catch him. He turned around to look at me and I said: "Hello, I am here!" I thought maybe to attack on the last lap but then I had a vision of both Yamahas in the dirt so decided third place was okay, especially for the championship! Anyway, I am very happy because I expected this to be the hardest race of the season but I am the fastest European rider here and I fought with the Americans. I have learnt a lot to try and beat them next year!"The next GP takes place on the 24th of July at Donnington racetrack in the UK.
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