Ducati Marlboro racers Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner were frustrated after ending fourth and fifth respectively at the AirAsia British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday.

Hayden looked like he was going to appear on the stage and claim his first podium finish of the year as he was in third place on the final lap, but a small error from the American let Ben Spies through at Abbey Corner as he ended up fourth in the fourth event of the year.

“It’s a pretty frustrating result because the team did a great job with the bike after the warm-up and it was a lot of fun to ride,” explains Hayden. “Unfortunately I didn’t get a good start – we’ve been having some little clutch problems and didn’t get away well.”

“The race was really fun, everybody was going back and forth, I was able to make some moves in the corners but just didn’t really have the top speed in the straights. It’s hard for me to dress this result up because I’m not happy to finish fourth again but the good thing is we were in the hunt again. We did something good with the bike today so hopefully it will work at Assen, a circuit I love,” he adds.

Stoner fell ten places following a bad start to the race which made him drop to the back of the field as the racers went into the first corner, however an excellent ride from there onwards allowed the Aussie to finish fifth by the end.

“I’m not happy with fifth place because we were capable of more today,” states Stoner. “I don’t know if we could have challenged Jorge for the win but we definitely found something in warm-up and made more improvements in the race, but we paid the price for a terrible start. As I let the clutch out the bike started jumping and hopping around and I had to pull the clutch in and go again, by which time everybody was past.”

He adds, “The tyres were fresh on before the warm-up lap so in the early laps I had to be really careful before being able to start overtaking and I lost a lot of seconds. The race then was fun, we were able to find a good rhythm and to make our way forward but the time lost at the beginning prevented us by fighting for the podium.”