KONICA MINOLTA Honda confident of qualifying comeback
KONICA MINOLTA Honda finished in a lowly 17th place in an
admittedly close-fought opening practice session for the second
race of the 2007 MotoGP season. KONICA MINOLTA Honda rider
Shinya Nakano was 10th during the morning free practice, but
following the timed afternoon session he slipped down the
order. Now the Team will be working hard and looking at the
data to ensure that the 29-year-old Japanese rider is much
further up the grid tomorrow during the afternoon’s
timed qualifying session. Many riders failed to equal their
promise shown a month ago at the official IRTA test, including
Nakano. In testing, Shinya did a 1’40.242” on
qualifying tyres but on race tyres he set a best of 1’
41.269” showing that there should be more to come from
the former 250cc championship runner-up tomorrow.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“We have to be positive when we look at these results
as tomorrow is another day. It wasn’t so easy for us
as Shinya wasn’t able to make the same lap time as during
the IRTA test here a month ago. Obviously none of us expected
to face this situation, so we need to check the data and support
our rider to get back to the front of the field. We will consider
going back to the same set up as winter testing and hopefully
get closer to that test lap-time. We have to consider that
we tested some different tyres today so we’re confident
to improve our performance and aim for a grid slot on the
first few rows. We have some more tyres to test tomorrow and
Shinya will try to be more aggressive in riding.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(50 laps – 1’42.199”)
“Quite simply it was not my day today. We now have to
look forward and I’m looking for the same sort of times
as from the IRTA test or better. We also need to understand
why we are in this position. The feeling from the bike is
a little different, even with the setting being similar, but
the bike doesn’t turn as well and I’m not getting
such a good feeling from the front-end of the machine. We
had a similar problem in the morning and adjusted the suspension
settings for the afternoon, so maybe we’ve not gone
in the right way. I need more confidence in the front tyre
but I’m sure the Team and I can find it.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“We are not satisfied because if we were making the
same lap time from the test we could have been in 6th or 7th
position at the end of today. We started from same set-up
as the test but the lap-time was not so good in this morning’s
cold temperatures. The afternoon session had similar temperatures
to the IRTA test, so our position is puzzling for us. Shinya
said his feeling is not so good on the entry of the corner
as he reaches his limit quickly and from then he finds it
hard to improve over time. He also finds it hard to hold his
line in the corner. Today we tested two completely different
settings for the number one bike and the spare bike, so our
first decision tomorrow will be look at our settings and work
with our tyre partner Michelin to find a way to get more feeling
with the front tyre for Shinya.”
GP de España, Day 1 Free Practice Classification
1) Carlos Checa Honda 1’ 40.851”
2) Dani Pedrosa Honda 1’ 40.906”
3) Toni Elias Honda 1’ 40.972”
4) Casey Stoner Ducati 1’ 41.171”
5) John Hopkins Suzuki 1’ 41.182”
17) Shinya Nakano Honda 1’42.199”
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