James Toseland struggles in Laguna Seca MotoGP

British rider James Toseland had a tough first day in Laguna Seca as he ended in a lowly 16th place on the timesheets.

The Tech 3 Yamaha rider joined several Michelin riders is experiencing serious grip issues at the California circuit.

Toseland could only post a best time of 1.23.943, which left him a massive 2.117s adrift of a rampant world champion Casey Stoner.

And to compound his misery, the double World Superbike champion joined Ben Spies and Anthony West in having crashes at turn three when he lost the front of his YZR-M1 late in the second session.

The 27-year-old said: “I’m not happy at all. It has been hard to do the lap times I expected and we have got some problems with the set-up and the tyres. I’m really struggling to have a good feeling and it has been a bit frustrating.

“I was pushing hard at the end of the session and crashed at turn three and I was only going to really improve by a tenth and maybe gain one position, and 15th is not where I expected to be.

“The main issue at the moment is getting heat into the tyres because we have got mostly harder compound tyres in my allocation. I’ve got a couple of softer options but I need to save one for the race and possibly use one tomorrow afternoon to make sure it is the direction that we need.

“I’ll sit down tonight with my guys to see if we can do something with the set-up that will push us a bit further forward. But today I was going as fast as I could and not feeling like I had much room for improvement.

“We’ll try and improve tomorrow as we always do and remain positive looking ahead to the race.”