SECOND ROW START FOR MELANDRI AT HOME GP
 Bad
weather continued to dominate proceedings on the second day
of the Grand Prix of Italy. Rain began to fall at lunchtime
and once again made life difficult for the riders in the afternoon
session, when the grid positions were decided for tomorrow’s
race. Intermittent showers and sunshine meant the track conditions
were constantly changing throughout the hour-long qualifying
practice, at one point leaving some sections of the circuit
dry and others wet.
Marco Melandri combined bravery and skill to judge the conditions
well and qualify as the fastest Honda rider. The Italian will
start from the second row of the grid after qualifying sixth
fastest and he is confident of his chances in his home race
after lapping well in both wet and dry conditions.
His team-mate Toni Elias struggled in the dry conditions
during this morning’s free practice and was unable to
improve his set-up once the rain hit in the afternoon. The
Spaniard is facing a tough challenge tomorrow from the fifth
row.
MARCO MELANDRI (6th, 2’02”001): “That
was a really difficult session with so many changes in the
conditions. They were changing from lap to lap and at the
end the track was half dry and half wet but I’m happy
to have qualified on the second row for my home Grand Prix.
I feel totally ready for the race, whether it is wet or dry.
I set a good pace this morning and my feeling in the wet is
also better – mainly thanks to the experience we gathered
in the Le Mans test. Honda are helping us a lot and the tyres
are also really good. We’ll obviously have to wait until
tomorrow before we make our tyre choice with such an uncertain
weather forecast.”
TONI ELIAS (15th, 2’05”592):
“It has been a difficult day and we’ve run into
problems in the wet and in the dry. This morning in the dry
we suffered from chattering and I wasn’t able to improve
that in the afternoon because of the rain. Tomorrow I’ll
have to start from the fifth row and it will be a tough race
for me but I’ll try to get a good start and make some
positions up.”
FAUSTO GRESINI: “My compliments go
to Marco because he judged the conditions really well in a
difficult session. He only just missed out on the front row
but the second row is a good starting position for the race.
Toni has struggled today but hopefully we can help him improve
in the warm-up.”
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