Edwards cites front end problems after finishing seventh

Although he reached a historic landmark at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, notching up a century of point scoring results in MotoGP, Colin Edwards was hoping for more than a seventh place finish from seventh on the grid in his home event.

The experienced Texan, who in seven and a half years of Grand Prix riding has only failed to score points in 10 of his premier class appearances, found the going tough around the demanding Laguna Seca circuit, with a lack of front end confidence meaning he was unable to take on the Californian curves as he would have liked to.

“We made a change on the bike in the morning to try and reduce movement on the front end, but it was a bit of a quick fix and it didn’t really work,” Edwards admitted. “I felt like I was just making straight lines not turning really, just straight lines interrupted by some braking here and there! I couldn’t get the thing (the bike) to turn, it was just going straight out to the curb, so that was a lot of work and I don’t like riding like that.”

On putting the issue right before the next race in Germany the self-critical American stated, “We’ll just have to go back to the drawing board. I didn’t think we were super special at Assen and here wasn’t super special. We’ve made some changes during the season that we might have to look at again and perhaps revert to what we had before.”

Acknowledging the help he has received in reaching his latest career milestone, meanwhile, Edwards added, “It's great to score my 100th points finish in front of my home fans and doing it for Monster, Yamaha and Tech 3 who have given me great support. But I expect more than finishing seventh.”