Race Reactions - Japanese Grand Prix.

Race reactions from the MotoGP riders following today's season opening Japanese Grand Prix.

Please note that some quotes were given before the seriousness of Daijiro Kato's condition was known by all riders...

Valentino Rossi - 1st: "We worked very had over the winter to get a good race rhythm - we actually did five full race simulations to make sure the life of the tyre is good. At the beginning of the race we had a good fight with Biaggi and Capirossi. I think it is possible to go a little bit faster so I go. I make the 8-hours here so 21 laps for me is easy!

"The win for me here is good. It is special for Honda and 25 points for me at the beginning of the championship is important. But after hearing about Kato nothing is very important."

Max Biaggi - 2nd: "An excellent debut with my new bike and my new team. I am very happy with the result and with the work that we have done in the team.

"This Grand Prix has not been an easy race and in the beginning I fought hard with Rossi and Capirossi, but after so long riding with Yamaha I am satisfied with the race and the final result. To start the season with 20 points is not bad at all, but there is still a long way to go and we must try to improve in the future. The championship is long."

Loris Capirossi - 3rd: "For sure I didn't expect such a result in my first race with Ducati, especially with my fourth-row start. The Ducati people have worked very hard, the bike improves day by day and for sure there are better days to come.

"My start (from 15th to 2nd) was unbelievable! After that I pushed so hard and to get third place is very good. I have to say thanks again to Ducati - we are still in the early stages with this bike but already we have shown that our potential is very high, but with Kato getting hurt, this doesn't feel like a great day to me."

Sete Gibernau (Kato's team-mate) - 4th: "What can I say? I think I don't have to explain my feelings - this is a tragedy. We are all involved in this and we will have to sit own and analyse the situation. When I say all of us I mean us the riders, Dorna, IRTA and the FIM. It's not a big complaint to anybody (in particular).

"During many years they have been working to make bikes quicker and to maximise the professionalism in this sport, in all senses. We all want to make things better but we have got to the point where the sport has to reassess some of the older tracks. We have all got to be smart enough to take decisions to help the sport, positive and constructive steps, for the good of our sport.

"We have all got to work together to ensure that every aspect of our sport matches the development of the equipment we race. We have to do this constructively and as a group, and immediately. We are all good people and all of us are involved in this."

Troy Bayliss - 5th: "It wasn't a win but we got a race under our belt and we're happy. We've shown that the Ducati is competitive and that's what it's all about.

"I couldn't do any more, I was pretty consistent the whole race but we're still missing a couple of things, I still don't feel myself on the bike. When we find what we're looking for, the bike will be really nice. I'm looking forward to all the other races, I'll be doing my best everywhere we go."
Colin Edwards - 6th: "The first lap was incredible! It seemed like a 125 race with riders everywhere in the track. Crazy! This never happened to me in Superbike championship. I think we did a good job anyway but to be honest I was expecting something better."

Nicky Hayden - 7th: "That was good. I got a good start - it was all pretty hairy out there! Some of the guys I'd never even seen on the track before! I just tried to get in a rhythm and wanted to start to move forward.

"At times in the first few laps I was a little bit soft in passing - I just wanted to come here and get a result and just get some experience. I've now got a race under my belt - I stayed up and finished. I'm happy I did that!

"I had a good battle with a lot of guys and even Colin. Funny - I've come all this way to Japan to race him - could have just gone to Texas!"

"I think that ride exceeded everyone's expectation," fives-times World Champion Mick Doohan.

Alex Barros - 8th: "Oh man I was in so much pain on the bike. I had to adjust my riding style due to my knee and in the first few laps I tried to understand how it was affecting the bike. I could not take the left turns too well; I just tried to ride as smooth as possible.

"The front had good grip, but already after a few laps the rear tyre started to loose traction and I had a problem driving off the turns. Maybe because of the wet qualifying conditions we didn't have the perfect rear tyre, I am not sure. All I could do was to overtake on the brakes.

"This evening I will go to hospital to have further checkup on my knee to understand how we should treat the ligament damage, and get a more exact estimation on the recovery period."

Shinya Nakano - 9th: "My start was good, but it was difficult to hold my positions in the first few laps because I could not feel the rear tyre. I wasn't sure what the grip level was. The track conditions today were somehow different, windy and with less grip than normal.

"After following some riders I got more confident and started to push more, and mid race I recovered some positions. The bike handled OK, but we need to work on further performance improvement and find a better balance between chassis and engine. For now ninth, as second Yamaha, is just OK, but I can't really say I am too happy."

Carlos Checa - 10th: "I didn't have a good feeling today with the bike. I got away well but I just didn't feel comfortable and couldn't push. I know that I am capable of doing better lap times than that here and I am very disappointed with this result."

Norick Abe - 11th: "Today I made a good start and got up to about eighth at the end of the first lap. At that point I thought I could have a good race but then I developed some problems with rear tyre grip and was sliding more with each lap and my lap times got worse. We had changed the set-up this morning but it didn't really work as well as I hoped."

Noriyuki Haga - 12th: "It's a pity for the crash. During the race I lapped with good lap times. My crash was strange anyway: pushing hard in the exit of the corner, the bike begun to wheelie and I had no time to get the front wheel down again, so I slipped off without any damage. The bike was still working so I decided to start again."

John Hopkins - 13th: "Whether I was ahead or behind Kenny didn't make much difference really. We were both together, and we're both at the limit of the machine as it is at the moment. I got a decent start, but I was boxed at Turn One, and then bumped at the Esses, which dropped me right back. That made me pretty disappointed.

"I tried to hang with the group ahead of me, and everything was good for a while. Then it started to drop off, and I was sliding around a lot by the time I got with Kenny. I got by him when he slowed for a second. After that, I just tried to keep 100 percent, and get to the finish. It's not exactly where we want to be, but we're trying to improve the machine, and I am sure we will during the course of the year. I mean to stay positive, and keep working."

Kenny Roberts Jr - 14th "It's where we're at at the moment. Actually it was quite dangerous for me to be at the front in the early stages. The guys were passing me down the straightaway so fast, and the bike went into a false neutral a couple of times going onto the straightaway. It's so dangerous when that happens, missing gears when we're already 10km/h down on speed. At one point I was considering stopping, because in that group I couldn't get out of the way fast enough.

"Then during the race when I was trying to change ignition maps I hit the power switch, which is right next to that switch, and turned the bike off. By the time I got it switched back on, John came by. He had different tyres, and his seemed to have better potential. I couldn't pass John safely. I might have locked the front and taken him out, and if I couldn't do it safely then I wasn't going to do it. It was a tough race. Realistically I'll take second place to John here, because it's really just John's and my outfit. So I'll take that."

Olivier Jacque - 15th: "It was a strange race, concluding a bad weekend. We never got the machine set-up properly, due to the lack of dry practice time. Although my tyres were working OK I could not turn the bike and the front was pushing all the time.

"I saw Kato on the floor and that affected me. Also I spotted that his machine leaked fluid on the track so I took it a little easy for a while. After a few laps I got myself together and started to push and recovered some positions.

"Really the only positive thing from this race is that I gained more track time, which gave me some clues on how to improve the setting of my bike."

Garry McCoy - 16th: "It was a bit tough because I got a little bit boxed in off the start. The guy in front of me who didn't really get off the line too good came in my direction and held me up a little bit. As the race got going, I was just trying to ride around and move up as much as I possibly could.

"The rear tyre dropped off a little after six to eight laps and then it started to slide more and more as we got towards the end of the race. It made it more difficult and I had some near moments when I nearly crashed a couple of times. Halfway through the race I lost the front fender and it caused a bit of destruction on the bike around where the front wheel is. It's disappointing to miss the points."

Andrew Pitt - 17th: "We wanted to finish the race and we did that. We were struggling for a bit of grip out there and it was obvious that Garry and I were capable of running at the same pace.

"It would have been nice to have got some points but it wasn't to be. The bike was working as good as it's capable of doing at the moment, it stayed pretty consistent but about halfway round the last lap I started to run out of fuel so that's what stopped us having our own little race that was going on."

Akira Yanagawa - 18th: "I'm disappointed with this result because my lap times were similar to the Suzuki and they both finished in the points. On the first lap, I ran off the track because the front brake didn't grab.

"I guess the carbon brakes weren't quite up to working temperature. And then later on the first lap, I nearly high-sided because the engine kept cutting out, and then the power would rush back in. My mechanics said it was down to a problem with an electrical wire."

Tamaki Serizawa - 19th: NA.

Tohru Ukawa - 20th: "I made a mistake at the start and that affected the whole race as I found myself suddenly a long way down the field and I had to work my way back up. As I overtook Bayliss we nearly clashed and I was forced off the racing line, which made me crash.

"Even tough I managed to rejoin the race, I am still very disappointed because I had high expectations here. With the times I set in the IRTA tests and the fact that I felt very comfortable with the bike, I had hoped to be fighting for victory. It is a shame, but the championship is long and I hope to get over this disappointment in the next race."

Makoto Tamada - DNF: "I was having a great race," said Tamada, visibly preoccupied by the first worrying news from the Mobile Clinic about the condition of his Japanese colleague and brand-mate Kato.

"I got off to a good start, but I lost a few places on the very first corners. Then I saw I could keep up a good pace and I tried to work my way up. I got to fifth place, which was an excellent position since this is my first ever race in the MotoGP. But then I lost grip on the front and went for a slide: I was probably demanding too much of my tyres and they suddenly deteriorated in a way that we hadn't noticed during the tests. We've certainly acquired an awful lot of data and gained some good experience that will help us continue our work."

Nobuatsu Aoki - DNF: "After three or four laps, I started to feel something wrong - the transmission was jumping. I thought it might be a problem with the clutch or the gearbox, and it was getting worse - real bad by the time I stopped.

"When my team checked, they found it was because the chain had stretched and was jumping on the sprocket teeth. Perhaps I could have finished if I had carried on, but I was so worried that the gearbox might lock up, and I decided to stop before there was a disaster."

Jeremy McWilliams - DNF: "I'm not sure why I crashed. I think it must have been my fault, but I didn't do anything different that time than the previous laps ...but I just pushed the front into Turn Five, and fell.

"I'm not hurt. Just surprised. I didn't think I'd done anything stupid - all you can do is just roll into that turn. Really we just didn't have long enough in practice to check tyre performance or durability, so it was a complete gamble for the race. Nobu and I had totally different tyres."