Le Mans MotoGP: James Toseland satisfied with ninth

British rider James Toseland felt he made major progress with confidence in his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 after he claimed a hard fought ninth place.

In an incident-packed race, which saw Toseland get his first experience of the flag-to-flag system where riders switch bikes in changing weather conditions, the 28-year-old ran as high as seventh in the early stages on a wet track.

But as the track quickly dried, Toseland opted to pull into the pits to change to his bike fitted with full slick Bridgestone tyres on lap seven.

He briefly threatened to close in on Aussie duo Casey Stoner and Chris Vermeulen before the double World Superbike champion started to suffer front grip issues.

Toseland said: “That was pretty eventful and my team did a great job for the change of bikes. I’ve never been in a flag-to-flag race before and it is definitely different. There’s no time to lose concentration in the pits because everything is still happening so quickly.

“And when you go out on a damp track on slicks you can’t lose focus. The team told me they were going to put ‘OK’ on the board as soon as the first person came in, and though nobody was coming in around me, I felt I came in at the right time. It’s always a risk because there were a couple of corners where it was still quite damp, but for two-thirds of the track you definitely needed slick tyres.

“My pace on the slicks at the start was really good and I was seventh at one point. But I was on the soft front tyre and it kept getting hotter and hotter and the stronger front harder tyre was what I needed. When I was trying to keep with Colin at the end I just didn’t have the front grip unfortunately.

“It was nice to be fighting up there again but on the other hand a bit frustrating because I think we could have had a seventh. It’s not the best finish but I really feel we have made a step forward here and my team is working great. As long as we can keep working like this I’m really looking forward to the next few races.”

American team-mate Colin Edwards was bitterly frustrated after a poor performance in the wet phase of the race cost him the chance to fight for a podium.

Edwards slipped back from sixth on the grid to a lowly 16th and he was struggling with a lack of front end feel when came into the pits for his YZR-M1 set-up with full slick tyres on lap 11.

The improving conditions transformed Edwards’ fortunes and he suddenly starting a thrilling surge through the field, eventually finishing seventh having passed Toseland with five laps remaining.

But he couldn’t help but think what might have been and the 35-year-old said: “I’m really disappointed because it was definitely a missed opportunity for a podium. In the first part of the race on the wet tyres I just couldn’t get the bike to turn. I’d lost so many places I was nearly at the back and I just wasn’t comfortable. The bike was just sitting on the rear and I had no weight on the front, so I couldn’t get into the corner. 

“I saw some guys pitting and I thought it was a couple of laps too early because there were still some wet patches out there. I waited for a bit and came in and on the first couple of laps back out of the pits I lost so much time again. I was on the hard front tyre because I can’t run the soft compound and it took a while to get some heat into it. I had a couple of moments but once it came good, it came really good and I got my head down. I think only Jorge (Lorenzo) was lapping faster than me and once I got my pace going I was catching people pretty quickly.

“To only finish seventh is a bit frustrating when you look at my times in the dry.  At the end of the day I rode a good second half of the race. But the first half wasn’t great and that cost me.”