FREE PRACTICE – TURKISH GRAND PRIX - ISTANBUL
TRICKY FIRST DAY FOR CAMEL YAMAHA IN ISTANBUL
Camel Yamaha Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
spent the first day of practice for the Grand Prix of Turkey
gathering important set-up data after encountering different
track conditions to those they enjoyed last season at the
Istanbul Circuit. With this year’s event taking place
some six months earlier than the inaugural race here last
October, overcast skies contributed to cool ambient temperatures
of 20ºC and produced low grip levels on track, where
Nicky Hayden (Honda) set the free practice pace with a best
lap of 1’53.623.
Rossi adapted swiftly to the conditions in the morning and
set the third fastest time of the opening practice, but he
struggled to make any significant improvements in the afternoon
and ended up eleventh on the overall time sheets. Edwards,
meanwhile, was sixth fastest in both sessions – improving
his lap time in the afternoon by 1.4 seconds. With plenty
of work still to do the only worry for the riders now is the
threat of rain, with dark clouds hovering over the circuit
and local forecasts predicting a downfall tomorrow.
COLIN EDWARDS (1’54.042, 38 laps)
“We started out with the base setting from Qatar but
it didn’t work very well for us here. Basically we then
decided to go with a newer front tyre than the one we’ve
been using in testing and it went much better. Combined with
a few tweaks to the suspension I built up my confidence in
the front and I was able to lay down some good lap times.
In the end we put a pretty consistent run together and I’m
happy. We’re still getting some vibrations but it’s
only in a couple of corners and we can work around them with
more time on the bike tomorrow; hopefully it will stay dry.
The track was really dirty this morning but it started to
clean up in the afternoon. If it stays dry then the grip should
improve as the weekend goes on, but they’re saying it
might rain so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
VALENTINO ROSSI (1’54.662, 43 laps)
“This morning we were fast straight away and
this was quite encouraging. We were third and we thought
that we would be able to continue in this way during the afternoon.
However we made some modifications in order to improve
the acceleration and unfortunately we lost a lot of grip in
braking. In fact our lap times were more or less the
same in the afternoon but the track was about half a second
faster – this morning it was quite dirty – and
now we are in 11th place. I am a bit worried but also
quite positive because we made some changes at the end of
the session, back towards this morning’s settings, and
we improved a lot and set our fastest lap of the day. So
far we don’t have any vibration and we hope that it
won’t appear tomorrow when the grip improves.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“In the morning things went well for Valentino
and in the afternoon they went well for Colin so you could
say we had a balanced day! The good news is that we have been
able to work as we would on a normal weekend, without the
distractions caused by the problems we experienced in the
first race. We collected a lot of good information today that
we can put to use tomorrow and find a way forward with the
set-up of the bikes. The only question mark is the rain so
the only thing we ask for is at least a few dry laps so that
we can evaluate the solutions we come up with tonight. Valentino
lost his feeling a little bit this afternoon but we will compare
the data from the whole day and find the best way to work
tomorrow.“
Combined Free Practice Times*:
Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda Team, 1’53.623
Casey Stoner (AUS) Honda LCR, 1’53.861
Marco Melandri (ITA) Fortuna Honda, 1’53.971
Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team, 1’54.001
Toni Elias (SPA) Fortuna Honda, 1’54.022
COLIN EDWARDS (USA) Camel Yamaha Team, 1’54.042
Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati Marlboro Team,1’54.055
John Hopkins (USA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP, 1’54.227
Sete Gibernau (SPA) Ducati Marlboro Team, 1’54.279
Makoto Tamada (JPN) Konica Minolta Honda, 1’54.422
11. VALENTINO ROSSI (ITA) Camel Yamaha Team, 1’54.662
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