Hopkins says fifth was Suzuki's limit

He had run second to Casey Stoner in the opening laps, but could not maintain the pace in the second half of the race.

"It was definitely a tough race out there today and I feel like I've been in a real battle," Hopkins said.

"I really put my heart into that race and worked hard to get that result. I wanted to be on the podium real bad today and I so much wanted to catch Stoner at the start.

"I was trying so hard, but I was getting some real bad vibrations around some of the turns and was losing about half a second through a certain section of the circuit. This meant I had to work even harder throughout the rest of the lap, but I lost a bit of rhythm and (Valentino) Rossi and then both the Hondas got by me.

"From there I just pushed as hard as I could to make sure I stayed ahead of (Colin) Edwards."

Suzuki had struggled earlier in the weekend, with both Hopkins and teammate Chris Vermeulen having difficulty breaking into the top ten in Thursday practice.

Team boss Paul Denning was satisfied with fifth in the circumstances.

"It has not been the easiest of weekends for the whole team, but nonetheless it was good to see John produce a well-earned top five result," he said.

"We were hoping for a better finish during the first half of the race when John was really flying, but the pace needed to get to the podium was just a little bit more than we had over race distance, and we need to respect John's maturity in riding to the limits to bring the bike home in a decent points-scoring position."