«Everything felt really good today with the bike and the grip,»

«I mean, you can?t spot a guy like that a second around this track with only a few laps to go. That was my own fault,»

«I enjoyed running at that pace, I tried to just hang on to Valentino,»

«Overall, I'm happy with the way it felt. There were a few places that I was faster, but I didn't get it done. I'll keep working on it.»

«I do enjoy battling with Valentino. It doesn't get any better than him and it just feels good to know he's the world champion and it just brings out the best in people to be right there and fighting with him.»

«Things are steadily coming better, but I'm having problems with a few places on the track.»

«I needed to get a good start. It just wasn't as comfortable, my pace wasn't as fast.»

«The race is always what's important. Qualifying now is so important. You have so many riders, so close together. The way the grid is it's really important to qualify well. The bike feels so much better today than yesterday. We didn't change anything major - just a few little things to get it to steer and get my confidence up to where I can ride it. That last lap was fun. Michelin qualifiers around here? you can hang it out and go for it. When you've got that grip you just kind of open the throttle and go for it. I feel like with a good start we can be right in there with the boys.»

«Today I rode the new bike all day and we made some good progress. It was the first time we've had chance to spend a lot of time on the chassis and engine and I went quite a lot faster on it than I did last time here so that's positive. It's still a prototype machine and there are a lot of things we still need to try because it's quite a bit different to my other bike. It would have been nice to test the two bikes back to back but I'm sure we'll get a chance tomorrow.»

«There is no excuse for me not getting better. I just have to get better. But all things considered this is a good start to the season.»