Michelin 'upset' by poor performance

After also struggling in the previous round at Laguna Seca, Michelin's tyres proved uncompetitive in both wet and dry conditions in the Czech Republic, with eighth placed Andrea Dovizioso the highest finisher on the French rubber.

"First of all, we must say thank you to our riders and also to the teams for the work they have done over the weekend trying to help us as much as they could," Weber said.

"Obviously we are very upset with the performance of our tyres and the results we achieved today. We knew it was going to be extremely difficult for our riders because we have struggled with front tyre performance since Friday. We therefore knew that our riders would really struggle with the front tyre during the race."

He admitted that Michelin had not managed to recover from the problems it endured in last year's Brno race.

"Now we need to understand the problems we faced here, where we also struggled last year," Weber said. "We have to make a big improvement to our performance at tracks like Brno. Now we will do our maximum to prepare in the best way possible for the next race at Misano, which is a different track and a different challenge."

Tech 3 riders James Toseland and Colin Edwards blamed poor performance from the Michelin fronts after struggling to 13th and 14th places.

"I don't want to be fighting at the back of the top 15, and neither does my team or Yamaha and it is disappointing," said Toseland. "All I can do is go out there with whatever I have got underneath me and give it my maximum and I did that. But this team and Yamaha deserve to be higher up and today wasn't good enough.

"I was reasonably happy with my start but I had a few moments with the front tyre on the first couple of laps and I soon realised that I was at my maximum and that I wasn't going to be able to do much more.

"We have got to keep working hard as a team and hope that Michelin can quickly turn it around for the rest of the season so we can try and get back into that top ten and keep the morale up of the team."

Edwards fears that his previously promising season will go rapidly downhill unless Michelin can raise its game.

"We need big improvements from Michelin," he said. "The good start we had to the season seems like a long way away now, and we have to work with Michelin to try and solve some of the issues because I didn't enjoy today at all."