THE QUALIFYING PRACTICES ARE CANCELLED BECAUSE OF THE RAIN
Marco Melandri and Toni Elias will start in third
and fifth row tomorrow.
The second day of the Malaysian GP was characterized by heavy
rain that started to fall around lunch time and spoiled the
qualifying practices that were postponed several times waiting
for the track to dry. At 4.15 pm the Race Direction decided
to cancel the Qualifying Practices for security reasons. The
starting grid will be decided according to the best times
scored by the riders in the three free practice sessions.
The Fortuna Honda riders will start tomorrow in 9th and 14th
positions.
MARCO MELANDRI (9°, 2'02"560): "It
was a strange day. I'm disappointed because during the three
practice sessions we worked in preparation of the race using
always race tyres. I would have preferred to decide my grid
position on track, that's why I have suggested to extend of
10 minutes tomorrow the warm up so that we could have done
warm up and qualifying. I respect the Race Direction's decision
but I have been penalized because I didn't use the qualifying
tyres this morning".
TONI ELIAS (14°, 2'03"102): "This
morning we did a good job focusing on suspensions and chassis.
Unfortunately this afternoon we couldn't confirm our work.
I'm sorry because without the afternoon practices I couldn't
improve my grid position. Tomorrow I will start from the fifth
row which makes my race very difficult. I'm sorry but I will
do my best to get a good result".
COMBINED TIMES
1. V.Rossi (Ita/Yamaha) 2'00"605
2. N.Hayden (Usa/Honda) 2'01.043
3. L.Capirossi (Ita/Ducati) 2'01"167
9. M.Melandri (Ita/Honda) 2'02"506
14 T.Elias (Sp/Honda) 2'03"102
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