The first season was a successful one for Toseland, as he recorded some great results in the first part of 2008 to eventually finish 11th overall (given that he was riding MotoGP machineries for the first time in career, that was considered a more than decent result). In 2009 however, Toseland was unable to keep the pace with teammate Colin Edwards and had to settle for the 14th place in the riders' classification.
The natural consequence of that was Tech 3 Yamaha releasing the Brit in order to make room for the new kid on the block, 2009 WSBK champion Ben Spies. Although having to return to the World Superbike series without any major result in the MotoGP series, Toseland insisted that he did not fail in his attempt to secure a MotoGP career.
“I was given the opportunity to move my career forwards and to challenge myself against the elite and the best in the world. Overall, it was a tough year and we had a few problems, but I really, really enjoyed the challenge. I was upset and disappointed [to lose the ride], because I felt like the challenge wasn't over and I wanted another opportunity, but unfortunately circumstances were the way they were and you've got to move on to wherever it takes you,” said Toseland in an exclusive interview with Crash.net Radio.
“We certainly didn't fail, but the inconsistency this year cost me being able to carry on at this point,” added the British rider, who also insisted that the media blew things way out of proportion when covering his alleged conflict with teammate Colin Edwards.
Prior to the 2009 campaign, Edwards' race engineer wanted to switch riders, leading to the North American rider telling the media he doesn't want to speak to Toseland anymore.
“(It) was just a load of rubbish that the media made up. The engineer that worked for him wanted to switch, and there were issues between him and Colin obviously because of that, but actually there was no issue between me and Colin whatsoever personally,” added Toseland.
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