Monster Yamaha Tech 3 riders Colin Edwards and James Toseland had a tough time in the sweltering conditions of Sepang, finishing qualifying ninth and sixteenth respectively.
Edwards struggled getting a setup he was confident with, admitting he went as fast as he felt he could on his way to ninth with a lap-time of 2:02.195.
“With the feeling I had with the bike, that was about as fast as I could go today.” said the Texan, “Being honest though I struggled a little bit today and I’m obviously doing something consistently wrong. I’m losing the same amount of time in the same sections over and over again, but when we change the bike we improve in one area and sacrifice feel in another. I can’t get the bike turned in at all and I’ve always thought I’ve been good at that. But at this track I’m struggling with it, particularly in the third section where I’m losing a bit of time.”
Edwards is now relying on a good start in the race tomorrow as he battles to take fifth place in the championship away from Andrea Dovizioso: “Those guys in front of me are not lapping much faster than me and the start is going to be crucial. I’ve just got to get by as many of them as I can early on and try and make a break like I did in Phillip Island. At least I’m in front of (Andrea) Dovizioso on the grid, so hopefully I can take some more points out of him tomorrow and have a really good crack at fifth in the championship in Valencia.”
Team-mate James Toseland’s tough season continued as he struggle for grip, commenting that Sepang has always been a tough track for him, despite this he was disappointed to only manage 16th place on the grid.
“It has been a really tough weekend and qualifying down in 16th is well below my expectations. This has always been a tough track for me and I wasn’t expecting an easy weekend, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as tough as this. I’m struggling to get grip on the edge of the rear tyre to give me the confidence to push harder. We’ve tried a lot of different options to try and improve the setting but it doesn’t seem to matter what we change, I don’t have enough grip on the rear.” said Toseland
“It is a problem mid-corner and also when I first open the throttle. Tomorrow is going to be tough with the heat, but we might just have to gamble with a setting for the race and see what happens. Being so far back on the grid means it will be difficult, but I never give up and I’ll be giving it my all for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team again tomorrow.”
