TOUGH BATTLE AHEAD FOR WEST AND DE PUNIET
Anthony West and Randy de Puniet were left disappointed with
their final grid positions for tomorrow's Portuguese Grand
Prix, after both Kawasaki riders struggled to find their form
during this afternoon's qualifying session at Estoril.
The chatter problems that had plagued West throughout free
practice yesterday were all but eliminated with a change of
set-up on his Ninja ZX-RR ahead of this morning's hour-long
practice period. But with only two hours remaining in which
to refine the rest of the set-up, the 26-year-old Australian
knew he was facing a tough task.
West was then forced to switch to his number two machine
early on in this afternoon's qualifying session, after a minor
mechanical problem sidelined his preferred bike. Despite this
setback, the Kawasaki pilot attacked as hard as he dared on
his qualifying tyres, eventually qualifying 16th fastest and
securing a sixth row start for tomorrow's 28-lap race.
West's team leader, de Puniet, also suffered problems during
qualifying today. After finding a good set-up on his Ninja
ZX-RR during free practice yesterday, the 26-year-old Frenchman
looked all set to secure a top ten start during qualifying
this afternoon, until a crash with just five minutes of the
session remaining brought his second flying lap to a premature
conclusion.
Racing back to the pit box and jumping on his number two
bike, de Puniet headed out on his final qualifying tyre, but
was unable to improve on his previous best lap time after
struggling to regain his rhythm. As a result, the Frenchman
will start tomorrow's race from 18th position, and the sixth
row of the grid.
Having arrived in Estoril with high expectations, West and
de Puniet were both disappointed with today's performance.
However, both riders are confident that the outright speed
shown by Kawasaki's Ninja ZX-RR during the two days of practice
so far will allow then to fight their way through the field
with minimum risk, by using this speed advantage to overtake
on Estoril's 900 metre long main straight.
Anthony West
#13 - 16th - Best Lap 1'37.885
"It's been tricky today to do consistent lap times but
I'm pretty pleased with the speed of the bike, it's really
fast on the straights and I think if I'm battling with someone
in the race I should be able to pass them just on the power.
The bike's been getting better all weekend and much of the
chatter I encountered yesterday has gone: it's smoother and
easier to ride so I’m getting faster with each outing,
but we just ran out of time today. Normally the bike is really
easy to flick through the turns, but for some reason it feels
a bit twitchy at this track during fast changes of direction,
but I'm sure we can deal with that. Tomorrow, I'm just going
to try and do my best and be as consistent as possible in
the race."
Randy de Puniet
#14 - 18th - Best Lap 1'38.271
"We've done some good lap times today on race tyres while
evaluating lots of different settings as well as some alternative
tyre compounds. Unfortunately, with the first set of qualifiers
there were a couple of riders on the racing line and I got
held up. With the second set, I crashed when I lost the front
at turn four: a very tight left-hander. After that, I restarted
with my spare bike but the feeling wasn't so good so I didn't
improve my lap time. I'm not happy about my qualifying position
but all the experimenting we've done has been very helpful
and we can work with the information we've collected to ensure
we can make up time tomorrow."
Naoya Kaneko
Kawasaki Technical Manager
"The positions we have on the grid are not what we were
expecting ahead of this weekend, but we've had some issues
with the circuit, which is one of the most technical on the
calendar. We've really managed to improve over the last couple
of days but have, unfortunately, run out of track time to
find that last few, all-important, per cent. However, if you
look at the lap times on race tyres overall, we're not so
far off, and although it's going to be difficult for Anthony
and Randy to make up ground from where they are on the grid,
and it's not an easy track on which to pass, they're both
racers and I'm confident they'll finish higher than they've
qualified in the race tomorrow."
1. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda Team 1'36.301; 2. Casey
Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro Team +0.040; 3. Valentino Rossi
(ITA) Yamaha Factory Racing +0.275; 4. Makoto Tamada (JPN)
Tech 3 Yamaha +0.435; 5. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team
+0.528; 6. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha Factory Racing +0.603;
7. Marco Melandri (ITA) Honda Gresini +0.856; 8. Sylvain Guintoli
(FRA) Tech 3 Yamaha +0.888; 9. Toni Elias (SPA) Honda Gresini
+0.945; 10. John Hopkins (USA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +0.979;
16. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing Team +1.584; 18. Randy
De Puniet (FRA) Kawasaki Racing Team +1.970
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