Grand Prix 2000 - Round 12 - Estoril

1st - Garry McCoy - “This is a great feeling after the disappointment of my bad results mid-season and it’s even better to win by almost five seconds; that’s a bit of a surprise. I had never started off pole before and that is definitely an advantage. I need to try to keep doing that for the remaining races this season. The wind was bad all weekend but for me it was at its worst in the race, almost blowing me off the bike a few times. Once I got going I only looked back once and saw Kenny was close but then I just concentrated on my pit board and putting in consistent laps, keeping a gap to second place and battling the wind. I wasn’t able to slide the bike as much as I usually do because of the wind. I had to pick the bike up early and ride it against the breeze to stay on the track in some corners. It was a bad feeling to drop to tenth in the championship. This is a good boost for the team and hopefully we can climb back a couple more spots before the end of the season. The Red Bull team deserve a lot of credit, especially the mechanics, who have stuck by me.”

2nd - Kenny Roberts - "That was not a fun race. The wind was so strong. It means you're not just working with yourself and the motorcycle and the tyres, but also fighting the wind. It also pushed the gearing out of the ball park which made it tougher. Sete (Gibernau) and Garry both got really good starts. For the first ten laps I thought if I could get by I could get the lap times a bit lower - the Suzuki is really good in the first half of the race. For the second half it's not so good, and with Sete gone I just tried to keep the gap constant with McCoy. I ran into some slower riders at the end which really slowed me up. In the last lap, when Rossi was closing, I didn't know how close he was - just that I was in front when we got to the chicane, and that there was no chance of him passing me between there and the last turn. At that point, I was going to finish, and if I'd lost one place it would have been better than crashing by trying to over-ride the motorcycle to achieve the impossible."

3rd - Valentino Rossi - "I think we would've been ready if the race had been next Wednesday, I'm happy though, because I rode a good race from the third row. In these circumstances, I think third is as good as a win but unfortunately it's not good for the championship. Roberts is a long way ahead, but I won't give up, I'll continue fighting for the crown, race by race."

4th - Max Biaggi - “We had some carburation problems in warm-up, so we had to change some parts for the race, it was a bit of a compromise, so I was a bit worried on the grid and it took me a while to get into a rhythm. I must’ve missed Gibernau by about 20cm, I had to shut the throttle and swerve, and that lost me time. The wind definitely affected the set-up but fourth place, close to the top three, isn’t a disaster. Overall I think we’re in good shape. I want to win again this year.”

5th - Regis Laconi - “I’m happy because that was hard work with the wind being so strong, I had struggled for a good race setting all weekend but in the end I found a good package. I really pushed to pass Abe early in the race because I thought I was losing time and in the final three laps I really pushed to hold fifth place, because the riders behind were racing very hard. I’m happy for this result, for me and the team.”