Monday am - Toseland Bounces into the New Job
"I could have picked another manufacturer to scrape off!"
James Toseland was hanging out in the paddock tonight, just walking around in a happy haze and chatting to whoever wanted to go over with him his amazing debut ride in
MotoGP.
It was that second-lap fairing bashing incident with fellow Yamaha rider
Jorge Lorenzo that announced to the world that Toseland was here to race from the start, not putter round apologetically for a few rounds to test out the temperature in this big new world of MotoGP.
Slamming into Lorenzo, Yamaha's prize 20-year-old hope for the future, was not the most subtle thing to do, and the Superbike graduate was quick to accept responsibility for the incident.
"It was just a lack of experience on my part, really, not having ridden against these guys," Toseland admitted. "I thought the door was open and the gap was a bit wider than it was. But he came back across me and we came together a bit too close."
Toseland got his Tech 3 bike up to second place at one stage early in the race, before being knocked back to sixth and tailing the scrap between
Andrea Dovizioso's JiR Team Scot Honda and
Valentino Rossi's Fiat Yamaha.
Did he feel a bit apprehensive about the possibility of having a go at the seven-times world champion?
"No, not at all," he said. "I was just doing what I do, and I was pushing as hard as I could. In most corners they were trying to overtake each other, so there were two bikes in front of me, and it made it impossible to pass them."
Now the Tech 3 squad will look forward to getting Yamaha's more powerful pneumatic-valve engine, probably for the third round of the championship in Portugal, when podiums will become a real possibility.
Sunday pm - Redding Emerges as Next Brit Thing
They were saying in the MotoGP paddock late last year that Scott Redding was going to be the next biggest thing to come through since Bradley Smith, and the 15-year-old boy from Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, proved it tonight with his amazing ride in the 125cc race.
