FORTUNA HONDA RIDERS IMPROVE PACE AND CONFIDENCE
The Australian Grand Prix, which gets underway at 3 o'clock
local time tomorrow, promises to be a demanding race for the
Fortuna Honda riders.
Marco Melandri and Toni Elias worked well on the set-up of
their bikes today, improve their race setting and general
feeling. Unfortunately the Gresini pair were unable to make
the most of the qualifying tyre and tomorrow Marco will start
from seventh place whilst Toni has to battle through from
the fifth row.
Nevertheless Marco Melandri remains confident about his chances
for the race and sure that he can repeat his performance from
last season, when he started from the third row but fought
with the lead group and only just missed out on the podium.
His Spanish team-mate Toni Elias is also confident of making
a good start and making up plenty of positions to challenge
for a good result.
MARCO MELANDRI (7th, 1'29"949): "Today
we worked a lot on the weight balance of the bike and the
feeling on the front in particular has improved. We still
need to work with the suspension to try and get a bit more
confidence in the fast corners and get a bit more traction
in the corners that are most important to a good lap time.
I set a decent pace but unfortunately I lost a few vital
tenths on a qualifying tyre and tomorrow I'll be on the third
row. We've still got a few modifications to try in the warm-up.
I'm still confident I can fight for the podium because this
is a track where you always fight to the end. Last year that
was the case - I started from eighth and fought for the podium,
finishing fourth."
TONI ELIAS (14th, 1'30"498): "The
feeling with the bike setting has improved a lot and compared
to yesterday we have taken a big step forward. I set quite
a good pace but I wasn't able to build on the good work we
did on a race tyre by making the most of the qualifying rubber.
Hopefully I can make a good start in the race as I did in
Malaysia. I'm confident - I like the track a lot - but I hoped
to be higher up on the grid".
MOTOGP QUALIFYING
1. N.Hayden (Usa/honda) 1'29"020
2. S.Nakano (Jp/Kawasaki) 1'29"258
3. V.Rossi (Ita/Yamaha) 1'29"271
7. M.Melandri (Ita/Honda) 1'29"949
14. T.Elias (Sp/Honda) 1'30498
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