WEATHER HITS TEAM SAN CARLO HONDA GRESINI HOPES AS NAKANO
QUALIFIES TENTH AND DE ANGELIS THIRTEENTH
 After
recording excellent results on the opening day of free practice
at the British Grand Prix, bad weather hit the hopes of Team
San Carlo Honda Gresini this afternoon. A day of drizzle saw
Shinya Nakano and Alex De Angelis qualify in tenth and thirteenth
position respectively on a wet track, which prevented them
from repeating their excellent form in the dry from yesterday.
Shinya Nakano (10th - 1’40’’417):
“Unfortunately the bad weather affected my riding in
both free practice and qualifying today. Heavy rain this morning
made it really difficult to control the bike and I had a small
crash, fortunately escaping without injury. In the afternoon
we changed the setting of the bike, improved the grip and
that allowed me to go faster and set more respectable times.
I lost my feeling with the bike a little bit, though, in the
final few laps of qualifying because the track conditions
were changing and there was less water on the surface. Tenth
place on the grid was at least an improvement on my position
this morning, when I was seventeenth. Now we have to look
and see if we can improve on anything for tomorrow because
the general feeling with the bike isn’t bad.”
Alex De Angelis (13th - 1’40’’667):
“Qualifying today was a little unlucky and a fourth-row
start is going to determine our race a little tomorrow. I’m
clearly unsatisfied with the result because usually in wet
conditions we are faster than this. Unfortunately we suffered
some rear traction problems – the bike was spinning
up under acceleration and we couldn’t find a solution
before the end of qualifying. Now we will work on the information
we have gathered to try and come up with something that suits
my riding style. We’re strong under braking so if we
can manage to improve the rear traction then we can look forward
to a good race. Another comeback is not impossible because
there are a lot of places to overtake at this track.”
Fausto Gresini – TEAM MANAGER: “I
was expecting better results from qualifying today –
third and fourth row starts mean we face another battle tomorrow.
I just hope that the conditions are dry because in the wet
there are a few aspects we need to work on to improve the
setting of the bikes. Alex couldn’t find enough traction
to set a good pace this afternoon and we need to work hard
to make him faster. I’m disappointed that after such
a good showing in free practice we couldn’t put together
a good pace in qualifying and secure good grid positions because
the ones we have certainly don’t help.”
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