Hopkins got off to one of his now customary flying starts and was up into eighth place by the end of lap one. He continued to chase down other riders in front of him and although he dropped back a place as he tried to conserve his Bridgestone race tyre, the Anglo-American battled back to seventh place at the end of the race to record his best-ever result at an Australian GP.

"We did exactly what we wanted to do today - obviously I would have liked to have finished higher - but to get seventh from where we started is a good result," stated Hopkins. "I got a great start and made a couple of places up round the outside and from there I just rode my own race. I lost a bit to the front group and tried to conserve the tyre a bit because we had chosen one of the softer compounds from our allocation. De Puniet came by me, but I then latched on to him and used him as a windbreak. It was good to see Melandri come back to us because I know how close we are in the championship so it was good to get past him later on and make up some more points."

Vermeulen, riding in a special Barry Sheene livery, crossed the finish line five seconds after his team-mate.

"It's not great to finish in eighth, but it is a very good result from the weekend we've had," admitted local star Chris, second in the dry/wet 2006 event. "We've really struggled here [in the dry] both last year and this, but this year we have taken a big step and it's great to see that we have a direction to head in. If we improve the same next year we will be pushing for the front."