CRUCIAL PREPARATIONS BEGIN FOR CAMEL YAMAHA RIDERS IN QATAR
Camel Yamaha Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
began key set-up work on their Yamaha YZR-M1 machines for
the Grand Prix of Qatar in relatively mild temperatures of
27ºC today. After excelling at this track in pre-season
tests the riders were keen to gauge the bike’s performance
against the other main contenders in the MotoGP class and
after two intense free practice sessions they ended the day
in optimistic moods about their chances for Saturday’s
race.
Following on from a disappointing first race of the season
in Jerez two weeks ago, where both Rossi and Edwards suffered
from vibration problems when cornering, the Italian and the
American confirmed that the issue was not as severe at this
circuit. Edwards spent much of the afternoon session at the
top of the time sheets as he set an impressive and consistent
pace before eventually dropping to fourth place – two
places ahead of Rossi.
The fastest lap of the day was recorded by Kenny Roberts
Junior (Honda KR) in a time of 1’56.905, just ahead
of Casey Stoner and Marco Melandri (both Honda).
COLIN EDWARDS (4th, 1’57.024, 28 laps)
"Everything is much better today and I’ve been
able to do some good laps, so it’s certainly a better
start than we made in Jerez! Although it’s much
less, the vibration hasn’t completely gone and we have
a couple of other issues that we need to work on in order
to be completely ready to push at the limit. I was able to
set a decent pace and knock out some consistent laps with
the current setting on the bike but we definitely still have
a few things to work out. I’ve gone well at this track
since the first day I came here and it really helps to have
tested here recently, but we need to take this extra step
before I can be truly confident about my chances on Saturday.”
VALENTINO ROSSI (6th,1’57.141, 41 laps)
"We knew from the tests that the bike worked much better
at this track and that was the case today. The vibration is
not so much and only in a couple of corners, but we can control
it. Now we can work more normally, concentrating on
setting-up the bike in order to go faster, rather than thinking
all the time about the vibration. We still have all day tomorrow
to make some small improvements and I think we can be fast
in the race on Saturday, as we were last year. There are some
very fast riders at the front and we are all very close together.
It seems the other guys were ready to push hard from the very
beginning and they are full of motivation so it will be a
hard battle. Jerez was also a hard battle for me but I hope
Saturday will be a different kind!”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“It is still quite early but at the moment it looks
like we might have a normal weekend! Both riders have a good
pace and between them they completed many laps today, gathering
some important information to work on the setting of the bike
tomorrow. We still have to improve though and it will be important
to keep up with the steps made by our competitors. Things
appear better than they were at Jerez but we’ll wait
until tomorrow to get a better idea.”
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