Improvements at Valencia for KONICA MINOLTA Honda and Nakano
In the final qualifying session of the year the KONICA MINOLTA
Honda Team made plenty of progress around the 2.764-mile Ricardo
Tormo circuit. With temperatures warmer than yesterday Team
rider Shinya Nakano found more grip from his Michelin-shod
Honda RC212V and with 14 minutes to go in the qualifying hour
was as high as 4th place on the grid. As other riders improved,
Shinya put his final qualifying tyre on and was setting a
fast first and second sector time before a mistake at the
end of the back-straight lost him valuable time. Despite this,
the 30-year-old Japanese rider had cut almost two seconds
from his Friday lap-time during the session to record a best
of 1’32.730” to place him 13th on the grid for
tomorrow’s final race of the year. Times were close
at the top again, with less than one second covering the top
ten grid positions.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“Shinya used his final qualifying tyre very well in
the first two sectors as he was quite near to the top of the
timing sheets, but then in the final sector he lost the front
and lost valuable time. For this reason he didn’t reach
his potential best lap time. This was a mistake but these
things happen. I think in any case tomorrow the race will
be exciting, even if at Valencia it’s not always easy
to overtake other riders. I think all the riders want to end
the season in the best way possible, so it could be a very
exciting race. I’m hoping that we can get a top eight
finish to end the season with our best result of the year.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(54 laps – 1’ 32.730”)
“I had a good rhythm in the first and second sectors
on that last qualifying lap, and pushed hard in that final
third sector – I was giving 120%! Things felt really
good but then after the back straight under braking I lost
the front, which meant I lost around four or five tenths of
a second. On the positive side of things, conditions were
much better today with higher temperatures which have given
us more grip so I could push much harder than yesterday. We
didn’t make many changes to the bike today as we found
a good balance on Friday and we’ve also found a good
tyre for the race. The start is vitally important here, as
things can get busy in the first turn and for the whole of
the first lap. I will have to be pushing hard right from the
beginning of the race.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“Again today our potential was a little better than
our grid result. With the last qualifying tyre Shinya made
a little mistake at the end of T2 and I think without that
we could have perhaps been on the second row or at least stayed
in the top ten. Our race setting situation is better than
yesterday and I think with the temperature and ground conditions
improving we have the potential to break into the top ten
tomorrow. We have finalised the tyre choice for the race so
we can enjoy a normal warm-up session and be ready for the
race.”
GP de la Comunitat Valenciana - Qualifying practice
classification
1) Dani Pedrosa Honda 1’ 31.517”
2) Casey Stoner Ducati 1’ 31.603”
3) Nicky Hayden Honda 1’ 31.903”
4) Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 1’ 31.963”
5) Sylvain Guintoli Yamaha 1’ 32.074”
13) Shinya Nakano Honda 1’ 32.730”
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