Malaysian Grand Prix
Sepang Circuit, Malaysia - Free Practice
HOFMANN AND CARDOSO WORK FOR THE RACE IN MALAYSIA
 The
PRAMAC D’ANTIN MOTOGP team begins the final push of
the 2006 MotoGP World Championship season with fierce determination
during the first two practice sessions at the Sepang circuit.
The ever-optimistic ALEX HOFMANN worked very hard in conjunction
with his crew to find the best setting for his DUCATI DESMOSEDICI
GP06 “Sat” with DUNLOP tyres, posting the 17th
fastest time of the day with a 2’04.706.
JOSE LUIS CARDOSO wants to end the season with good results,
ending the second session in 19th place with a time of 2’05.958,
and having focused on finding the optimum bike set-up which
will allow him to race to his full potential in Sunday’s
Grand Prix.
Tomorrow, there is a third free practice session which precedes
the official qualifying session at 14:00, and every minute
will count as both riders continue to strive for the best
results possible.
ALEX HOFMANN #66 (17° - 2’04.706): “I
am very happy to be back home with my team after a nice experience
with the DUCATI factory team in Brno. I wanted to start working
again with my technicians, and today we tested several tires
looking for consistency during the race. We used almost every
possibility at our disposal to discover more grip from the
rear. The whole team worked hard, but we have to take more
steps forward to find the consistent traction we will need
during the race - which will be quite difficult because of
the warmth and humidity. Tomorrow, we are testing other tires
and pushing to lower our times for a good performance on raceday”.
JOSE LUIS CARDOSO #30 (19° - 2’05.958):
“We improved a lot with respect to this morning’s
session, thanks to the job of our technicians on the bike’s
set-up. I’m having some problems with the grip of the
rear that’s forcing me to ride more conservatively.
While the bike is sliding I’m losing time. The soft
tyre seems to be the better choice, while the hard one has
less grip. Tomorrow we will work very carefully on tire selection,
and I hope to find the best one for the race. We will also
do a long practice run to verify our final choice”.
EMANUELE MARTINELLI – Track Engineer of Alex
Hofmann: “ During the today’s free practices
we tried to find the best race tires for Alex. We tried to
improve the rear grip using almost all of the suspension combinations
available to us, but we were unable solve the problem. The
aim for tomorrow is to continue working on the race set-up”.
1. Loris Capirossi 2’01.711
2. Dani Pedrosa 2’02.021
3. Kenny Roberts Jr. 2’02.563
4. John Hopkins 2’02.710
5. Casey Stoner 2’02.847
17. Alex Hofmann 2’04.706
19. Jose Luis Cardoso 2’05.958
Conditions: Dry / Air: 32°c / Ground: 45°c / Humidity:
30%
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