Toseland believes penalty was harsh

The Tech 3 Yamaha rider was shown the black flag when he failed to come in for a ridethrough penalty within the time permitted, having been adjudged to have made a false start. By the time he finally made his penalty pit visit, he had been officially disqualified and removed from the timing screens.

Toseland admitted that the had not seen the penalty notification or the black flag, and reckoned the jump start decision was marginal in any case.

"I feel like the jump start was pretty harsh," he said. "I knew it was close but I didn't think I'd jumped the start and that early in a 32-lap race I'm not looking at my pitboard.

"I was just concentrating on catching the guy in front and the first thing I realised that I'd been penalised was when I saw the black flag and my number.

"Obviously if I'd known I'd jumped the start then I would have come in but I've watched the TV replay and you can't see anything. I didn't gain any places either so in my opinion it's pretty harsh."

His team boss Herve Poncharal agreed that the jump start judgement was a tough call, but admitted that Toseland should have realised he was being given a penalty.

"It was a marginal jump start but that's the rule, it is the same for everybody," said Poncharal. "Unfortunately he didn't see the signal to ride through the pits, so he learned a lesson today."

Toseland's team-mate Colin Edwards finished seventh, which was less than he had hoped for in his home race.

"I expect more than finishing seventh," he said. "I'm pretty tired now and it was a really physical race because I couldn't get the bike to turn. Each time I threw it on its side it just went straight out to the kerb.

"I was using a lot of effort to get the bike to turn and it felt like the front forks were sitting between my legs. When I braked the front didn't feel like it was coming back up. It felt like the front was buried in the ground and just pushed me out to the edge of the track.

"My pace was consistent and I was doing between 22.9 or 23.1 the whole race, but that just wasn't fast enough."