Rain halts progress for the KONICA MINOLTA Honda Team
Heavy rain at the legendary circuit of Mugello this afternoon
has meant that the KONICA MINOLTA Honda team and their fellow
competitors in the MotoGP class could not improve on their
Friday morning times. Rain began to fall on the 3.2 mile circuit
during the 125cc timed session, just 30 minutes before the
MotoGP riders were due to be on track. In the combined morning/afternoon
times Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa took top spot, with
Carlos Checa the next Honda home in fifth. KONICA MINOLTA
Honda’s Shinya Nakano ended up in 14th place, just behind
French GP winner Chris Vermeulen and two places ahead of Le
Mans pole-sitter Colin Edwards.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“This morning our start was not so bad but later the
changeable weather conditions finally had a big influence
on the day. This morning we started to test new tyres and
Shinya’s feeling with the new material has been very
positive. Today’s conditions were not ideal so we are
not putting too much importance on the final times from today.
As the weather conditions were not suitable to evaluate fully
our settings and tyres, this work must continue tomorrow.
In the coming days the weather is expected to improve, so
tomorrow we will have to work hard and do our best to find
a good qualifying position for Sunday’s race.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(35 laps – 1’ 52.361”)
“This morning we made some changes to the suspension
balance and the feeling was pretty good. We had made some
adjustments for this afternoon then it rained and we had a
minor problem, so I had to wait in the pits while the team
worked hard to correct it, then at the end we decided to adjust
the set up of the second bike to run it on rain tyres. We
need to check the best settings for dry and wet weather if
we can, so we all have a busy day ahead tomorrow whatever
the weather!”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“This morning we ran in dry conditions and this afternoon
it was full wet with a lot of standing water on the track.
This morning was productive, as we used a new rear tyre and
the feeling was pretty good. This afternoon with an eye on
the weather we decided to prepare one bike for dry and one
for wet conditions. Despite Shinya starting with the wet setting
bike, the quantity of water on the track meant that we had
to make further changes in the pits, so Shinya was forced
to stay in the pitbox longer than expected. At the end of
the session we tried to adjust the setting of the second bike
to the changed conditions of the track as the rain was less
intense. Shinya only had time to go out for a few minutes
before the chequered flag, but he was able to obtain a remarkable
improvement in his performance. Shinya’s feeling with
the bike seems to be in an improving phase and this makes
us hope for the best for tomorrow when we will have to improve
our performance whatever the track conditions are. We will
not have problems to race on a wet track but at this time,
our main target is to give Michelin as much information as
possible to continue improving the performance of their slick
tyres.”
GP of Italy - Free practice classification
1) Dani Pedrosa Honda 1’ 50.743”
2) Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1’ 50.901”
3) John Hopkins Suzuki 1’ 51.022”
4) Casey Stoner Ducati 1’ 51.356”
5) Carlos Checa Honda 1’ 51.414”
14) Shinya Nakano Honda 1’ 52.361”
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