Biaggi: I thought the new exhaust was better...

Max Biaggi jumped at the chance to use the new Honda exhaust system and associated engine parts in Sunday's Czech Republic Grand Prix - previously only available to factory riders Alex Barros (for two GPs) and Nicky Hayden (in the Donington test) - a seemingly obvious decision which may have cost him a chance of victory.

"First of all I have to thank my team and Honda because despite the problems we had during the weekend, in the short time between the end of the warm-up and the race they managed to get in shape to fight for the podium," began Max, who struggled with braking all weekend, but would finish third behind Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi.

"I think I put the rest in, firstly with a good start, probably my best of the year, and then fighting tooth and nail for the top spots," he continued.

"Of course I'm happy to receive the new parts from Honda and thanks to Mr Kanazawa, the President, who's allowed us to use these parts - for sure there is potential, but we'd like to make this (new) bike work much better," he added.

"I thought it was better (than the standard bike), but I couldn't go as fast as Gibernau so I think we still have something to fix. We weren't right in the braking areas, and now we have two test days where I want to get the bike ready to take on Estoril," he concluded.

Gibernau also had the exhaust available but, unlike Biaggi, chose to stick with his standard bike due to a lack of set-up time caused by the unpredictable weather. The Catalan will use the new parts for the first time in a two-day test session that starts today (Monday) at Brno.