James Toseland disappointed with 12th

British rider James Toseland expressed his disappointment at finishing outside of the top ten in today’s weather-hit qualifying session in Sepang.

The Tech 3 Yamaha rider had to settle for 12th position even though he topped the timesheets with only nine minutes remaining.

The session started on a full wet track after torrential late morning rain battered the circuit, but quickly dried in the hot and humid conditions, providing tough conditions.
Toseland moved into the top three with just 17 minutes remaining before he jumped into first place in the final ten minutes.

His best lap of  2.03.282 though saw him climb back into fifth after he slipped out of the top ten, but as lap times continued to plummet in the improving conditions, the 28-year-old had to settle for 12th.

He said: “Today was all about timing and judging when to jump on the bike with slick tyres on to make the most of the drying track. But unfortunately I just missed out. The track was just drying at the point when I’d run out of time to put in another qualifier, but I’m sure I could have got in the 2.02s and that’s a second row, so it is a bit frustrating.

“Early on when it was full wet I was just not trying to take any risks because I could see it was going to dry quickly. There were still a few puddles in some places and going through them on slicks pretty much means an instant loss of traction for a split second. At times I was top three, then out of the top ten, and then leading, so that shows how up and down it was at the when the track was dry.

“I also didn’t get the most out of my last qualifier because I thought I might have the chance to come in for the fourth one. So I pushed hard on the warm-up lap and to be honest I went too quick and it was sliding around a lot. And as it happens I wouldn’t have had time to use the fourth one anyway.

“We have still got some work to do for the race tomorrow as well. This morning in the dry we moved in right direction and I was about a second off. If I can improve the setting to run in high 2.02s then there is no reason why I can’t be fighting for the top six.”