Pedrosa and Hayden react to tough race

Dani Pedrosa gave his thoughts on an ultimately disappointing weekend in France which saw him finish fourth and lose the World Championship lead having started on pole, while his factory Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden also finished in a position below expectations.

Dani Pedrosa - 4th

`I am sorry because we could have been on the podium but in the race I wasn´t able to go as fast as I had gone during practice. From the beginning of the race I had some issues with the front tyre, I couldn´t brake the way I wanted to brake. When we chose our race tyres we tried hard to choose the best tyres for the race, so we didn´t expect things to turn out like they did. Then in the second half of the race I started to lack some rear grip. I gave my maximum and despite the problems we finished fourth, which isn´t so bad.´

Nicky Hayden - 8th

`That wasn´t too pretty. All weekend we´ve been missing something, the pace hasn´t been there. I got a good start and recovered a couple of positions but couldn´t go with the group I needed to go with. I was hanging in there, then I ran off the track in turn six, got in just a little bit hot, didn´t make it and that lost me three positions. I came back on, had a little dice with Loris Capirossi over the last few laps but it wasn´t the result we wanted.´