Qatar Practice
 Team
San Carlo Honda Gresini were welcomed to the Grand Prix of
Qatar by a circuit that was in worse condition than they had
left it just over a week ago, thanks largely to the sand that
has blown onto the track surface since the test visit. Alex
de Angelis suffered from front end chatter and suffered a
crash when he was pushing for a better time. He went straight
to the Clinica Mobile but had luckily escaped injury, other
than a neck strain, and was able to return for the second
practice. Indeed during the later session Alex was able to
improve his best time by well over a second to finish sixth
overall, while his team-mate Shinya Nakano also significantly
improved his pace to conclude in 12th position.
Alex de Angelis (46 laps, 1.56.120): "In
the first session we tried two different sets of tyres: one
softer and one harder. With the first tyre I had a lot chattering
so I was not that comfortable and I lost some grip which resulted
in the crash. I took a heavy blow to the neck, but it was
nothing too serious. In the second practice we really improved
with respect to the earlier times, and got back towards the
pace we had here in the test. That was down to hard work from
from Bridgestone and everyone in the team, who have used the
data we collected last week. We’ve also got some ideas
for things to try tomorrow and I hope to go faster because
we’re already quite close to the top."
Shinya Nakano (44 laps, 1.57.011): “We
started with the same setting as last week, but the condition
of the track was a bit different, because of the sand on the
asphalt. I didn’t have enough feeling on the front so
I wasn’t pushing as hard as I wanted. The track conditions
were better in the second session as it was cleaner so lap
by lap I was improving my lap time. I tried some different
tyres and I’ll carry on tomorrow as we look to take
the lap time down.”
Final result:
1 Casey STONER 1'55.442
2 Jorge LORENZO 1'55.453
3 James TOSELAND 1'55.812
4 Colin EDWARDS 1'55.942
5 Andrea DOVIZIOSO 1'55.963
6 Alex DE ANGELIS 1'56.120
7 Randy DE PUNIET 1'56.234
8 Chris VERMEULEN 1'56.279
9 Valentino ROSSI 1'56.395
10 Loris CAPIROSSI 1'56.922
11 Dani PEDROSA 1'56.962
12 Shinya NAKANO 1'57.011
13 Nicky HAYDEN 1'57.045
14Marco MELANDRI 1'57.091
15 Toni ELIAS 1'57.311
16 John HOPKINS 1'57.416
17 Anthony WEST 1'57.934
18 Sylvain GUINTOLI 1'58.500
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