Edwards: Rossi pulled out his 700th miracle...

Being Valentino Rossi's team-mate can be the best or worst job in motorcycle racing - the best if you can compare favourable to one of the greatest riders of all time, and the worst when he makes you look ordinary on the same machinery.

Unfortunately for Rossi's current Camel Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards, Sunday at the Sachsenring was definitely a case of the latter.

While both had suffered severe handling problems during qualifying, leaving Rossi eleventh and Edwards 15th on the grid, the Italian "pulled out his 700th miracle" to take a thrilling win on Sunday while Edwards crept home in twelfth, having lost almost one second a lap to his team-mate.

"What can I say? I guess I'm just slow around here," shrugged the Texan. "The guys worked their butts off all weekend trying to give me something but we simply couldn't get the bike working and I never had the pace. It looked like Valentino was in the same situation but today he pulled out something like his 700th miracle and you can only take your hat off to a great champion.

"We changed some things for the warm-up but I wasn't comfortable so we went back to the setting from Saturday, which we knew wasn't ideal either. The first few laps were okay but I struggled to pass Toni Elias and by the time I got past him we were way back. From there on it was just a battle to keep the bike on the track and there wasn't much more I could do but bring it home," he added.

"Colin wasn't able to recover a difficult situation but now he has seven days before getting a big chance to turn things around in his home grand prix," said team director Davide Brivio.

Edwards will be hoping to at least repeat his 2005 US GP form - when he beat team-mate Rossi for second - in this weekend's race.