Pedrosa underwhelmed by fourth

The Spaniard's day began badly when his Repsol Honda reared up violently on its back wheel as he attempted a practice start at the end of the warm-up. Pedrosa fell from the machine as it landed and had to switch to his spare bike for the race.

He then fell from first to third off the line and eventually came home fourth as the Michelin runners struggled to maintain their pace in the closing stages.

"Having taken pole position yesterday of course this is not really the result we wanted here," Pedrosa said.

"The feeling was not perfect but still I was able to push hard and fight for positions for most of the race. However in the last ten laps the grip from the tyres began to fall away quite quickly and I had a lot wheelspin and the machine was sliding when I tried to open the throttle."

Although Pedrosa felt that Casey Stoner would have proved unbeatable in the race, he was disappointed to lose out to Loris Capirossi and Valentino Rossi.

"Casey was very fast again here and I don't think we could have stayed with him today but it's a shame not to be on the podium today," he said.

It was the second race in a row that Pedrosa had taken pole position only to endure a frustrating race. He had crashed out of second place at Motegi in the last round.

"We've had two pole positions in a row and haven't converted them into very good results so hopefully we can change this for the next race in Malaysia next weekend," he said.