14th for KONICA MINOLTA Honda and Shinya Nakano at Malaysian
GP
After a difficult Friday practice, things have improved for
the KONICA MINOLTA Honda Team, with Shinya Nakano cutting
more than two-and-a-half seconds from his Friday time. The
30-year-old Japanese rider was in the top ten for part of
the qualifying hour as he took advantage of softer qualifying
rubber, but by the time the chequered flag came out he had
been pushed back to 14th place on the grid. He and the Team
know that they still need to refine the settings on their
Honda RC212V machine in time for tomorrow’s 21-lap race
at the 3.447-mile circuit.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“Today situation is very similar to Phillip Island as
Shinya was able to push hard for one lap only. We’ve
improved the setting of the 800cc machine and he was faster
than this morning. I think the new asphalt on the circuit
is difficult for everyone. The circuit is hard on tyres anyway,
but this and the new surface and possible high temperatures
will mean riders may need to change their riding styles as
the race progresses. Shinya’s style is very sensitive
and he has not been able to get a good feeling from the hard
compound tyres, so it’s necessary for us to find some
new settings for his machine. Tomorrow it’s important
that we will be able to stay with the second group, then we
could get into the top 10.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(40 laps – 2’ 03.233 ”)
“No rain today but we and everyone else are still struggling
with this new track surface. In the afternoon we improved
a little with suspension settings, but we’re still looking
for quicker turning into the corners and overall a better
feeling from the front of the bike. At the moment I cannot
keep my corner speed up, or keep a decent speed when entering
the corner. Tomorrow morning we will try and find a better
setting in warm-up. We will keep hoping for the best and never
give-up as the race is long and the conditions still could
be changeable.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“At least the weather is much better than yesterday!
We have made some improvements from Friday and our feeling
with the tyres is better than yesterday, but our overall improvement
was not enough to be able to stay in the top 10. With the
qualifying tyre we were having problems and we found it difficult
to get the machine settings just right for this track. Yesterday
our problem was a lower temperature affecting things, this
afternoon the temperature was more what we are used to, but
this showed us that things are very different from our winter
tests. We still do not have enough grip or feel for Shinya
to be comfortable as when he pushes hard he goes off-line
and loses a lot of time. For this reason we have tried some
modifications to increase the level of mechanical grip from
the bike and improve the balance of the RC212V machine. Shinya
said that the improvements have worked, but these steps forward
haven’t been big enough, so tomorrow morning we will
make some further changes to improve our situation still further.”
Malaysian GP - Qualifying practice classification
1) Dani Pedrosa Honda 2’ 01.877”
2) Casey Stoner Ducati 2’ 01.918”
3) Marco Melandri Honda 2’ 01.944”
4) Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 2’ 02.107”
5) Anthony West Kawasaki 2’ 02.202”
14) Shinya Nakano Honda 2’ 03.233”
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