Rossi meanwhile had a somewhat more eventful race, finding himself as far down as eighth at one point and making a small foray off-track on lap eleven. After fighting back through the order he looked like holding onto the last podium place behind Edwards, but with four laps to go Chris Vermeulen passed him and he was relegated to fourth. Today's race sees the gap from Stoner to Rossi stretched to 26 points, whilst Edwards' haul of twenty points moves him three places up the order to seventh.

Colin Edwards (Position: 2nd; Time: +11.768)

"We had good race! I had a great start, better than any of my practice ones during the weekend, and then I just got my head down and kept pushing lap after lap. My bike was feeling good in the wet but then it started to dry out. I started braking a bit harder and feeling more confident, but then the front locked once into the chicane which gave me a bit of a scare. Then at the next corner, down at the hairpin, I locked it again, ran wide and Casey came through.
 

"After that I tried everything but I couldn't stay with him and it was clear that I didn't have the grip he had. It was pretty tough, but then I guess it was tough for everyone! You could see the dry line forming and rain tyres with a dry track don't work well! I just had to pay attention and take care not to spin it too much, using half throttle instead of spinning it up. Anyway, we did the best we could today and it feels good to be back on the podium, so a big thanks to all my guys. We've made a lot of progress this weekend and now we'll carry the momentum on to Assen next week! Hats off to Casey too, he did a great job today."

Valentino Rossi (Position: 4th; Time: +21.827)

"Unfortunately today the conditions were not good for us at all and we had a lot of problems. In the full dry we would have been at our strongest, in full wet we would have been also quite good, but with a drying track like this we struggled a lot. I made a mistake and ran off the track when I was going the best I went during the whole race and then as the track began to dry I had less and less grip; it seems that this year, when the conditions aren't perfect, we suffer a lot. I had to go very carefully just to be able to finish and, because we were riding with a wet tyre on a dry track, my tyre was destroyed by the end. Colin did a great job in difficult circumstances so congratulations to him. We've had a very long meeting tonight and now we have to try to improve the situation for Assen."

David Brivio, Team Director

"We're very happy for Colin to be back on the podium, he did a great job all weekend so well done to him. Now he has found his confidence again and hopefully he can carry on like this. For Valentino it was a very difficult race and he had quite a lot of problems in the difficult conditions. We have some work to do but Colin's result is very encouraging for the whole team and now we go straight to Assen to have the chance to make up for this weekend with Valentino. We'll keep working as hard as we can and hopefully we can get back to our best very quickly."