Malaysia was a frustrating event for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 duo of Colin Edwards and James Toseland, who placed 13th and 15th respectively.

The pair had front end grip issues on their satellite YZR-M1s, Edwards could not keep up the race pace in cooler conditions than those his squad had prepared for.

After working through hot and humid conditions, the rain that delayed the beginning of the event by 35 minutes proved difficult and after moving into 12th spot on lap 13, Edwards finally placed one position lower.

“The weekend wasn't great to be honest. The bike wasn't fast in the dry for some reason and I just couldn't get going all weekend,” states Edwards. “We tried a different setting on the race morning and it felt better, but it certainly wasn't a miracle spark. But with the rain coming like it did it just made it a guessing game.”

“When it was properly wet I felt like I was upping my pace and closing in on the group for tenth, but then the tyres started heating up and I was sideways all of the time. In the final laps I was losing a lot of time.”

The smash and being unable to finish the race for rival Andrea Dovizioso meant Edwards is now only six points behind him.

“I'm going to Valencia still fighting for fifth in the championship with Dovizioso crashing, but I don't like taking profit from the mistakes of other people,” says Edwards.

Team Manager, Herve Poncharal, also commented on the difficult weekend.

“It has been a very disappointing weekend and easily the worst for us this season,” he explains. “We were struggling in the dry so I can't say I was unhappy to see the rain because I thought this would give us a chance of improving our results. Unfortunately our performance was even worse in the rain and we can't be happy. Now we have to understand why we struggled so much this weekend.”

“The only good thing is that we go to Valencia with Colin still fighting for fifth in the championship and the whole team is motivated to finish the season on a positive note.”