SET-UP WORK STARTS FOR CAMEL YAMAHA RIDERS IN ESTORIL
Camel Yamaha Team racers Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
began preparations for the Grand Prix of Portugal with an
intense day of work on the set-up of their YZR-M1 machines
at Estoril today. Dust and dirt lifted by recent modifications
at the track made for slippery conditions in the morning,
whilst warmer temperatures than those normally experienced
here in the afternoon tempted the teams into experimenting
with their race setting and made it a challenging day at the
office for the riders.
Rossi was the fastest rider out of the blocks in the opening
session, the Italian’s best time of 1’39.398 leaving
him two tenths clear of nearest challenger Loris Capirossi
(Ducati), with Edwards less than a second adrift of his team-mate.
The American, working off data gathered by Rossi at the recent
Motegi test, slashed his times in the afternoon, although
the Italian found progress more difficult to come by as he
tried a variety of different set-up options ahead of tomorrow’s
final free practice and qualifying sessions. The fastest lap
of the day was set by Australian rookie Casey Stoner (Honda)
with a time of 1’38.218, just 0.050 seconds ahead of
series leader Nicky Hayden (Honda).
COLIN EDWARDS (6th – 1’38.779; 47 laps)
“After we made such good progress at Motegi we just
brought the same set-up here and pulled the bike off the truck
this morning. However this track is quite different to Japan;
there every corner is pretty much flat but here there are
some banked turns, so we needed some time to understand how
the setting from the Motegi test could translate and work
for us here. Anyway we’ve definitely made progress throughout
the day and we were much faster this afternoon than this morning,
so we’re moving in the right direction. We need to sit
down and talk about the next steps tonight, then with any
luck we can come out fighting tomorrow morning with everything
in place.”
VALENTINO ROSSI (8th – 1’38.826; 43
laps)
“Today we’ve tried several different things with
our bike, trying to find the best compromise for the track.
In the morning we immediately went well and we were fast from
the start. Then this afternoon we weren’t able to find
the perfect tyre, so we need to do quite a lot more work in
this area. Then we lost a bit of time because we had a problem
with our first bike and so needed to set the second bike up
quickly and so we only had time for three more laps before
the session finished. I saw that Nicky was very quick so it’s
definitely going to be hard this weekend! Anyway despite these
problems it’s been a good start to the day overall and
I am quite pleased. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow but
I think it’s going to be a good fight!”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“That was an interesting day to start off the weekend.
Valentino started very well this morning and then in the afternoon
we tried a different way with the setting of the bike. It
was very interesting and helpful to compare the two sets of
information and results – hopefully it will enable us
to find the best setting tomorrow. Colin was also quite good
today; we’re trying to use the good results from the
Motegi test to help him find a comfortable setting here. It’s
been a good day all round. Hopefully we can continue to make
improvements with both Valentino and Colin tomorrow and make
sure they are competitive for both the qualifying practice
and the race.”
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