Shinya Nakano out of the points in Malaysian MotoGP race
Shinya Nakano suffered a disappointing Malaysian Grand Prix
today. The 30-year-old KONICA MINOLTA Honda rider spent most
of the 21-lap race struggling with front-end issues at the
3.447-mile circuit, which meant he was unable to hold onto
the points-winning positions. The Team will now re-group and
check the data from today’s race to make set-up improvements
to their 800cc RC212V machine in time for the final round
of the 2007 MotoGP championship in Valencia in two weeks time.
Gianluca Montiron – Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA
Honda
“We could see our expectations for the end of the race,
because Shinya started off losing a few positions and then
making some places back. He was able to make his best lap-time
two laps from the end when Anthony West was chasing him. Shinya
was finally overtaken by West, which meant that we didn’t
take any points today. This is very unfortunate for us so
close to the end of the season when every point counts. I
was very surprised by Shinya’s actions after the race
and his reaction when he came back to the pit-box. This is
not a correct style of behaviour for a professional rider
because I have to protect the image of my sponsors and cannot
tolerate this sort of attitude. Also for the Team who work
so hard for him this is not what they want to see.”
Shinya Nakano – Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda
(16th)
“Today has been very difficult for the Team and myself
and I am very disappointed with the result as Sepang is one
of my favourite tracks. This morning we improved some settings
on the front of the bike and it did feel better than before.
I was fighting with Carlos Checa and Nobuatsu Aoki but I couldn’t
follow them so finally I just tried to keep my lap times consistent
and hold position to get that last point. In the last couple
of laps Anthony West passed me for the last point. During
the race we once more had chattering problems from the front-end
of the bike and the machine hasn’t turned as well as
I would have wanted. As a result my corner speed has been
slow and we’ve struggled a lot. We will all work hard
to turn this into a positive result for the last race at Valencia.”
Giulio Bernardelle – Technical Director, KONICA
MINOLTA Honda
“We made some improvements again this morning and during
the race Shinya was able to run in the 2’ 04”
bracket, which was our best lap time with race setting all
weekend but this meant we were really far from the top which
wasn’t so good. The reason for this is that after a
few laps Shinya had more chattering from the front of the
bike, which for the rider means that he cannot push hard in
the corners, which is Shinya’s style. It also makes
things difficult when you’re fighting for positions
in the early laps. This has been a difficult weekend, with
the weather being difficult on Friday and us all having to
adapt to the new track surface. We have improved, but not
enough to solve our problems. We will now head to Valencia
hoping that we can continue to make progress as we did before
the Malaysian race.”
Malaysian GP - Race results
1) Casey Stoner Ducati 43’ 04.405”
2) Marco Melandri Honda 43’ 06.106”
3) Dani Pedrosa Honda 43’ 06.731”
4) Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 43’ 08.170”
5) Valentino Rossi Yamaha 43’ 09.178”
16) Shinya Nakano Honda 43’ 56.131”
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