Penalty drops Elias to 12th at Assen

The Suzuki rider was forced wide and down to 10th when Elias slid across the final chicane in a bid to take sixth and pushed Capirossi off. Elias had previously charged through the field to join the massive battle for sixth after tumbling down the order on the first lap.

"There were some really hard riders in that group and it was a lot of fun," said Elias. "I want to publicly apologise to Capirossi though because I was very late into the last chicane and ran us both off track.

"I feel bad for him but I just had to give it everything I had today.

"Race Direction have decided to penalise me for it, which I have to accept, but the most important thing about today was the performance and not the result."

Elias's Gresini Honda team boss Fausto Gresini felt the penalty was unjustified, but agreed that the pace he showed was ultimately the most important thing.

"It is disappointing that Race Direction have decided to penalise Toni because other than his start I thought he had a great race today," Gresini said.

"But to be honest it doesn't bother us too much because the points are virtually irrelevant at the moment - the important thing is that we make progress and as far as we're concerned we scored a solid eighth place.

"The team have done a great job on his bike and proved that we're ready to fight much higher up the order."