Twelfth position for KONICA MINOLTA Honda at Laguna Seca
KONICA MINOLTA Honda’s Shinya Nakano took a hard-fought
12th position in today’s US MotoGP race. The 29-year-old
Japanese rider started the race strongly and then spent the
rest of the 32-lap race battling with the likes of Anthony
West and Makoto Tamada in a close battle in the middle of
the field, before finally slipping back with front-end issues
to finish 12th at the flag. The MotoGP championship will now
have a three-week break until the next round of the series,
which takes place in the Czech Republic at the Brno circuit
on 19th August.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“At the start of the race our situation was very good
as Shinya was able to stay in the second group and his rhythm
was good for half the race, but after that I think our technical
package was not as quick as some of the other riders. I think
Shinya felt that some issue limited his riding and a chattering
problem occurred when the tyres were a little past their best.
I think today even if the result is similar to what we have
experienced before, we can see that Shinya was able to stay
and fight with the second group of riders and this is a positive
thing and it is good for our rider’s motivation. Now
we have a break until Brno so we have the possibility to get
something new from our Technical Partners, which we hope will
give us similar equipment to some of the other teams which
will aid our overall performance.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(12th position)
“We started so well for this race. I could stay with
the riders in front and we managed to get up to 8th on the
first lap. We slipped to 9th, but I felt good, as my lap time
was better than practice so I felt that the setting was good
and the tyre choice was OK. Then from the middle of the race
I felt some front chattering problems and with this happening
I couldn’t push hard towards the end of the race and
things got a little bit worse. This was a big shame as our
qualifying position was quite good. It has proved to be yet
another difficult race, but I’m looking forward to the
next race at the Czech Republic after I’ve had some
rest at home in Japan. We should have some new parts which
makes the second part of the season very exciting for us.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“We are a little bit disappointed as this was maybe
our best weekend to get a good result from the technical point
of view. Perhaps our problem was that we were unable to find
the best tyre for the conditions. We went for the softest
tyre in our allocation but it was not enough. At the start
of the race our situation was not so bad, despite the fact
that there was not a lot of grip. Shinya started well but
from the middle part of the race we could see that his situation
was getting more difficult lap-by-lap. This was a shame as
the combination of Shinya and the Honda RC212V was pretty
good here at Laguna, but we just seemed to have some problems
in the last half of the race.”
USA GP - Race results
1) Casey Stoner Ducati 44’ 20.325”
2) Chris Vermeulen Suzuki 44’ 30.190”
3) Marco Melandri Honda 44’ 45.966”
4) Valentino Rossi Yamaha 44’ 50.989”
5) Dani Pedrosa Honda 44’ 55.947”
12) Shinya Nakano Honda 45’ 13.173”
|
