Day of battles for Pedrosa and Hayden

Runner-up and fourth place finisher, respectively, Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden had to roll up their sleeves in Sepang. Pedrosa was not quite able to keep up with racewinner Valentino Rossi, whilst Hayden was involved in a gripping duel with podium finisher Andrea Dovizioso.

Dani Pedrosa - Second

`It was a very tough race and I´m happy very about this result. I want to thank my team, we have worked well, improving every session. On Friday morning we were only 17th, I think, then we started moving forward and yesterday we were able to get pole and today I finished second, so finally it has been a good weekend for me and my team. We have made another important step forward after Phillip Island where I crashed out of the race and hurt my left knee. At the end of today´s race Valentino was faster than me, he always puts on some extra pressure towards the end, so it was difficult to follow him, but we were closer this time than we were at Motegi, so I am happy that we are making progress with our new bike and tyres. It has been a little bit difficult for me and my team to get used this package so late in the season, but we are getting faster every race and this is important. If we can get closer at the next race then we know we are working in a good direction. I am looking forward to Valencia next week: there will be a lot of Spanish fans there.´

Nicky Hayden - Fourth

`We knew it was never going to be easy – all weekend we´ve been sixth and seventh, and with the changeable weather we were never really able to find anything set-up-wise. Then we had a bad warm-up. We tried some stuff overnight and went a bit backwards, so for the race I was quite unsure how it was going to go. We put the bike back to how it was yesterday morning, and it was okay, but I was just missing that little bit. The race honestly went better than I thought I would, it could´ve been uglier. I pushed hard, a couple of times I was able to get in front of Dovi, but he held tough. Man, he don´t give in for nothing. I enjoyed the battle, it was fun battling for the podium after the dudes up front took off early. I tried everything I could, I was pushing the front quite a lot, through Turn Three mainly. Maybe I should have tried something a little more silly on the last lap, that's always hindsight, but sure I´ll beat myself up tonight, thinking I should have taken some bigger chances, but I was already pushing hard. Congratulations to Dovi on his first podium, he earned it.´