Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha - 1st
“This is a very emotional moment and for sure I will remember this 100th victory for the rest of my life. When I reached 70, 100 seemed a long way away but here I am and it has been great, great fun getting here. It is down to so many people, like Jeremy and my guys who have been with me for ten years and all of the team who always give 100% and always give me the best bike possible. Especially however I have to thank the friends who have been with me my whole life and my father Graziano, who won here in Assen 30 years ago when I was a baby, and my mother Stefania, because they have always supported me. It’s great to reach this moment here at Assen because it’s the ‘Cathedral’ of motorcycle racing and the most historic track we go to. Today was a perfect race – I got a great start and my bike was incredible which meant that my pace was very strong. In fact I think it was better for everyone’s hearts not to have another last-lap battle like in Barcelona! I had a good advantage from Lorenzo in some parts of the track and it was a great ride for me. Now I have 100 wins and I’m only the second rider to arrive at this number, but Agostini still has 22 more and for me he is still the greatest. 100 is a great result but the atmosphere in our team is wonderful and the motivation is still as high as ever – we want to win a few more races together yet!”
Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha - 2nd
“First of all I have to say congratulations to Valentino because this is an incredible thing to achieve and this day belongs to him. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good start today and I had to take a few risks to pass people and come back to the front. Once I did I tried to go after Valentino but in some places I just wasn’t as fast as him; he was riding 36.5s every time and I didn’t really have quite enough confidence to push that hard today because the bike didn’t feel perfect. As the race went on I started to feel the front tyre ‘close’ a bit and I decided that it was safer to come home in second! Another podium is a great result; it’s my fiftieth and we continue to be very strong this season so I am happy. I am only five points from the lead and we are in a good position going to Laguna, which I am very excited about.”
Casey Stoner Ducati 3rd
"I've been feeling fine all week but started to feel run down again on Friday and I've just got worse as the weekend has gone on. I've taken every kind of supplement and vitamin tablet you can think of but nothing seems to have worked, so it is obviously something we need to have looked at closer because I can't keep going like this and it is costing us points. Thankfully I had a fantastic bike underneath me again today and I owe the team for that. A big thank also to Dott. Macchiagodena and our physiotherapist Freddie (Dente), who took good care of me both in Catalunya and here. Unfortunately we don't have much time to get fit for Laguna but we'll see what we can do."
Colin Edwards - Tech 3 Yamaha - 4th
“Finally I got a decent start and the longer wheelbase bike helped me get off the line. When Dovizioso came by I was biting my teeth to stay with him and keep the pressure on. But then I saw Dovizioso crash in front of me and just before that I'd had a moment with the right side of the front. I'd done 32-laps on that tyre yesterday but coming in and out of the pits all of the time it's hard to get an accurate assessment of what's going to happen. I just held station after that because I could see I wasn't catching (Casey) Stoner and I was holding Vermeulen off comfortably. My target was just to ride without making any mistakes and keep the momentum going. I rode my hardest but this year in MotoGP it is so hard just to get a podium. The field is so strong now and it's the hardest year I've ever had in MotoGP. I've ridden nowhere near as hard as that in the past and been on the podium. But I'm close to fourth in the championship and I was only beaten by the three fastest guys in the world today, so I'm happy with the job I'm doing. I can't wait for Laguna now and hopefully I'll be able to go better and get a podium for Monster, Tech 3 and all the American fans.”
Chris Vermeulen - Suzuki - 5th
"I'm obviously happy because this is my best result of the year and we have shown that we have made a step with the bike after the Barcelona test - especially on the chassis side of things. At this track - and the next couple that we are going to - it is not so important on the motor front, so the slight speed disadvantage that we have is not so bad and we can still be competitive. I got a good start to the race and got in with the front guys early on. I tried as hard as I could to stay with them, but didn't quite have the lap-times to hang in there. I kept pushing all race and when Colin came past I tried to hang on to him, but he seemed to have a bit more rear grip than me. Most of the race after that was pretty boring as I was on my own. I'm happy with fifth and it gives us some valuable points in the championship and a good result to take forward into Laguna Seca."
James Toseland - Tech 3 Yamaha - 6th
“I was a bit nervous on the start because I'd no experience with a new clutch set-up we were running. The crash in the warm-up meant I didn't try it before the race, but I did a pretty good start but still lost three or four places. I knew I'd got a pretty good race set-up so just tried to stay calm and in the first couple of laps I took advantage of that to get into the top ten. It was an incredible battle for most of the race and I knew I wasn't much stronger than the rest and I knew if I got to the front that it wasn't going to be a case of me pulling away. I knew once I was at the front of the bunch that it would be a case of protecting it. That's exactly what I did but it was nearly all spoiled on the last lap. I was getting ready to pass Mika at the last corner when Elias came under me at Turn 10. That let Loris through too and I'd gone from sixth to ninth! It was so chaotic I didn't even see Kallio crash and I thought when Elias dived under Loris at the last chicane that they might run off. Fortunately for me they did and I took advantage of it, and leading that group for so long I think I deserved sixth. It has been great to work with Mr Nakajima and I feel quite privileged to have his help and it just shows that I'm still on Yamaha's thoughts and they want me to get up to speed.”
