I'll be back at the front, insists Edwards.

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The season-opening Qatar Grand Prix saw another strong practice and qualifying performance for Colin Edwards turn sour on race day, yet the American insists he'll be back in contention this weekend at Jerez.

The former double World Superbike champion raised eyebrows by leading two of the three free practice sessions at Qatar, then qualified on the outside of the front row in third - but all that counted for nothing as he struck unexpected problems on race day, leaving the Texan a frustrated sixth at the flag.

"I'm looking forward to Jerez, our bike worked pretty well there during the test and we made some good changes to it there so I am expecting to be running at the top again - just this time I hope to be able to do it in the race, too!" said Edwards, who was best-of-the-rest behind team-mate Valentino Rossi and Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa at the Jerez test. "Qatar was disappointing of course because we were so good all week and then the race didn't work out. It wasn't what we expected but we just have to learn from it and move on."

"Last year Jerez wasn't great for us, I got a good start but then got caught up in Valentino's crash and ran through the gravel at turn one [pictured] but both he and I will be looking to avoid anything like that this year! We've got a good setting to start with in Jerez and we'll go from there," Edwards added. "We know we need to work on a few things and I know Yamaha are working hard to improve our top speed a bit, but hopefully that won't be too much of an issue in Jerez."

"There is no reason why Colin can't repeat his form at the tests and challenge with Valentino for the podium this Sunday," declared team director Davide Brivio.

Crash.net

That must be so frustrating to do really well in qualifying and then have a bad race. Hopefully he’ll do better at Jerez.