Toseland finding a rocky road at midseason
Four podiums have contributed to his place inside the top five before the Miller round, but a very hard weekend in the USA saw him score only one finish of ninth, and subsequently lose his overall top five placing to his old rival Noriyuki Haga.
"A frustrating weekend for me," said James ruefully. "We started really well here and I got down to some pretty decent times relatively quickly in the first practices so was feeling confident for the races. Superpole didn't go quite as planned so I had a less than perfect grid start position. I managed a good start in the first race and was making up places but unfortunately I ran out of grip several laps from the end, which slowed me down. It took me a while to get into a good pace in race two, but as I was picking up I came out of one corner too fast and so was too hot into the next, resulting in losing the front end. The team have worked really hard all weekend and I'm sorry I couldn't deliver them a better result today."
The championship fight, from Haga on 135 points to his team-mate Michel Fabrizio in tenth on 102 points, is incredibly close after 14 races. Toseland's next outing with his peers will be at Misano, on June 27th.
