MELANDRI AND ELIAS ON REDEMPTION TRAIL
The opening day of the Grand Prix of Portugal proved to be
tougher than expected for the Honda Gresini Team.
Marco Melandri, who finished fourth in the last race at Misano,
started out with a similar base setting and worked hard to
adapt it to the characteristics of the Estoril circuit. Unfortunately
this proved to be a difficult task and he was unable to ride
to the best of his abilities, finishing tenth in the morning
free practice and sixteenth in the afternoon. The Italian
will be looking for major improvements tomorrow.
Toni Elias' return to Estoril brought back memories of his
first ever victory in MotoGP here last season - a result he
would love to be in a position to repeat come Sunday.
TONI ELIAS (15th, 1'38"843): "Physically
I feel better compered to Misano so today I tried to ride
without any painkillers and I struggled a little. I'm at about
80% fitness now but I could feel the pain and tomorrow I'll
have to take something again. I like this circuit a lot and
I've had some great times here. I'm sure we can get a top
result here but we still have a lot of work to do. Today we
weren't able to get the best set-up for the bike's characteristics
and we're struggling mainly under heavy braking. Tomorrow
we'll also keep working on the cycle part."
MARCO MELANDRI (16th, 1'38"919): "We
started out with the base from Misano and some of the good
solutions we found in the test on Monday. Unforunately we've
come up against a chattering problem here that doesn't allow
me to ride as I like. We're struggling in some of the hard
braking that characterises this circuit. Tomorrow we'll keep
working. According to the weather forecasts the temperature
could be up and that could be favourable for us because we
went for a slightly harder tyre choice than we needed today.
We know that this track is demanding and together with the
team we're working to find the best solution."
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