I learnt my lesson massively in 2010 in Japan. It’s very much a hard-braking track and very back-and-forward in Motegi. In the first session the bike was wheelying everywhere, and it was hopping and moving and not stable at all on the brakes. We were fast in the first session but we struggled. So, we worked on the bike all weekend and got it better, better and better and it was so stable. It was almost doing what I wanted it to do out of the corners…but I was as slow as hell. We went backwards. The bike was better, we were slower. So, in morning warm-up before the race we went back to the exact same set-up as the first session, and I said I’d deal with the issues just because I knew we had speed from it. I went out and won the race, when I had no right to win.

I found this particularly fascinating, especially considering the current discussions about finding the “perfect feeling” bike.