Third row for KONICA MINOLTA Honda at Australian Grand Prix
Shinya Nakano and his KONICA MINOLTA Honda Team have put
their Honda RC212V into eighth position for tomorrow’s
27-lap Australian Grand Prix. With changeable weather conditions
so far dominating proceedings at the Phillip Island circuit,
today’s qualifying hour was mercifully the only MotoGP
session to be completely dry. Shinya took advantage of set-up
improvements to his 800cc Honda machine to record a time more
than three seconds quicker than his Friday lap-time to secure
his third row grid slot. The Team will now keep an eye on
the weather situation once more in tomorrow’s morning
warm-up before making their final choice on race tyres.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“Today was one of the best qualifying sessions of the
season for us. When you look at the times, you will see that
the gap between pole position and us is quite consistent to
what we’ve seen before, but eighth place is an improvement
from many of our previous grid positions. I still think that
tomorrow will be a difficult race as I think we haven’t
yet got a good race rhythm, so while Shinya is able to push
for one lap in qualifying we need to improve things further
so he can stay with the second group and have a consistent
race – that’s how you get a good race result.
Shinya’s qualifying laps on soft rubber today were good,
despite having some other traffic in the way. Let’s
hope for a good start and consistent weather for tomorrow’s
race!”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(47 laps – 1’ 30.612”)
“I am happy with that! Once more it’s very close,
but it’s also very good to be inside the top ten in
qualifying again! With the cold conditions it is difficult
to choose the tyres here, because if you go for a harder compound
it is very difficult to get them warm. We’ve not decided
on the race tyre yet – we shall see what the weather
has in store for us tomorrow – but our suspension settings
have improved a lot. With our qualifying tyres things improved
each time and we could cut a lot from our Friday lap-time.
We suffered a little with traffic with one of the qualifiers,
but this is what happens. Tomorrow I would prefer dry or wet
conditions – not in between or us changing bikes, as
that makes the race a gamble. I’m ready for both conditions
and will hope for a good start.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“We had a good day today particularly with the qualifying
tyre. For the first time this weekend we had a full dry practice
so we were able to test some different setting and tyres.
Shinya had a little trouble with traffic when two riders were
in the way, so maybe we had the potential for a second-row
start position. The important thing is that our setting has
improved but we have to think carefully for our race tyre
choice as today conditions were still cold, but warmer than
yesterday at a little over 25 degrees. If it gets warmer tomorrow,
we may have to look at our tyre choices again. We improved
the balance of the machine for Shinya today to help him in
the first part of the corner and also on the engine braking
control which has helped Shinya improve his time.”
Australian GP - Qualifying practice classification
1) Dani Pedrosa Honda 1’ 29.201”
2) Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1’ 29.419”
3) Casey Stoner Ducati 1’ 29.816”
4) Nicky Hayden Honda 1’ 29.932”
5) Loris Capirossi Ducati 1’ 30.090”
8) Shinya Nakano Honda 1’ 30.612”
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