FORTUNA HONDA COMPLETE SECOND DAY OF OFFICIAL TESTS
MOTOGP TEST CATALUNYA, day 2
FORTUNA HONDA riders Marco Melandri and Toni Elías
completed their second day of official testing duties at the
Circuit de Catalunya in cold weather conditions today. The
two riders worked hard throughout the day although at the
end they were forced to settle for twelfth and seventeenth
position respectively.
Marco was able to complete the programme he had for today
although he was unable to reach the desired results. The Italian,
who produced a stunning run of form at the end of last season
to seal second place in the championship, knocked a fraction
of a second off his time from yesterday but that was not enough
to leave him satisfied at the end of the day. His team-mate
Toni Elías, who is riding a MotoGP bike for the first
time at this track, was unable to improve on the 1'44.672
he clocked yesterday.
Tomorrow the riders will have the opportunity to demonstrate
their potential in front of thousands of spectators, who will
flock to the track to enjoy the timed BMW Award session which
runs from 14:05 until 14:45.
MARCO MELANDRI (76 laps, 1'44.512) 12th fastest:
"They've been two very tough days for us but we've still
got a long way to go. I'm struggling to find the ideal feeling
to enter the corners comfortably and I still need to improve
my corner speed and line. Fortunately we've still got four
days of tests left before the first race at Jerez. I'm disappointed
we are not at the level we would like to be at but I still
look forward to this season with optimism."
TONI ELIAS ( 70 laps, 1'45.782 ) 17th fastest
"Yesterday we saw one side of the coin and today we saw
the other. This wasn't a great day for us even though we worked
really hard to make it that way. We had a few grip problems
and the track temperature didn't help much either. We can't
use that as an excuse though because it was the same track
for everybody. We tried a few different tyres without finding
the ideal one but I'm sure we will find it through hard work.
I actually felt more comfortable on the bike yesterday."
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