Tech 3 disappointed to fall back

Sylvain Guintoli had taken the team's best ever finish when he came fourth - narrowly missing out on a podium - at Motegi three weeks ago.

The French rider then qualified a promising ninth at Phillip Island, but a lack of speed early in the race consigned him to 14th place at the finish.

"After the lift from Motegi this was a very disappointing weekend for us as we came here with high hopes of a good result," Poncharal said.

"Qualifying was good as Sylvain was on the third row in front of some more fancied riders but in the race we lacked grip in the crucial first couple of laps.

"We then started lapping at the same pace as the guys in front but we had lost over five seconds to them in the opening laps, which is just too much. We expected a lot better so we are all disappointed."

Poncharal felt the rain-interrupted practice sessions had prevented Tech 3 from perfecting a race set-up.

"We didn't find the best settings with the weather but that is no excuse," he said.

Guintoli said the Dunlop tyre's reluctance to get up to temperature was his main handicap.

"Although I had a good start, I lost quite a lot of places on the first lap waiting for enough heat to get into the tyre," he said.

"Once that happened I was able to set a good pace and match the lap times of the riders in front of me.

"It took me a long time to get past Chaz Davies by which time the others had made too much of a gap on me and I wasn't able to reduce it with the number of laps remaining."

Makoto Tamada finished 16th on the second Tech 3 bike, just beating Kurtis Roberts across the line after a close battle in the final laps.

"I was very happy with the bike setting we had and the front tyre was great but I didn't have a lot of side grip in the rear," Tamada said.

"It was okay when I was right on the side of the tyre but I didn't have much feeling throwing the bike into the corners and also picking it up on the exits."