Pole sitter
Colin Edwards held his hands up and confessed that a braking error cost him dearly during Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, although he and Tech 3 team manager Herve Poncharal had differing opinions on what may have been possible without it.
Edwards had to settle for eighth after his podium challenge ended when he ran off track at the end of the back straight on lap six, on a day when many riders were caught out by a tailwind that substantially increased their top speed heading into the hairpin.
After being forced to yield an early lead to
Dani Pedrosa and then
Valentino Rossi, the Texan had been holding third at the time and pulling away from reigning world champion
Casey Stoner.
Edwards lost four places, which he was never able to recover despite a determined ride in the second half of the 22-lap race and he crossed the line seventh.
"I knew what pace I could run and was just pushing as hard as I could in the beginning to try and get away from the guys behind me," said Edwards. "I knew Casey was going to be there but I don't know what Valentino and Dani had but they were flying. As soon as they passed me they were gone.
"I was running third and I came into the hairpin after the back straight and braked at the same place but the rear end came up and I did the longest nose wheelie I've ever done in my entire life," he revealed. "I kept waiting for it to come back but at the end I had to let the brake off to get the rear wheel on the ground and I ran wide. I only lost three seconds but it was the places I lost that mattered.
"I rode as hard as I could and I'm tired of saying it, but I could not do anything else. We just missed something in the package today. At the end we needed to refine a couple of things to make it a little bit better but at the end of the day I made a mistake. But if I hadn't made it I still wasn't going to be on the podium. It just wasn't going to happen today. I wanted the temperature to be cooler but maybe not as cool as it was.
