French GP: Gresini Racing race report

BAD LUCK STRIKES AGAIN FOR TEAM SAN CARLO HONDA GRESINI IN FRANCE

Team San Carlo Honda Gresini riders Shinya Nakano and Alex De Angelis had another day of misfortunate at Le Mans although they did finish the Grand Prix de France in the points. After once again showing their potential in free practice, both Shinya and Alex were unable to reproduce that form in the race and they ended the day with tenth and twelfth place finishes respectively -- another pair of results that don't match up to the team's hopes or expectations.

Shinya Nakano (10th): "Unfortunately today I wasn't able to put the race together as I had wanted. Starting from the fifth row always makes life difficult but over the opening few laps I couldn't even stay with the group in front of me. It was only when it started to rain halfway through the race that I got a good pace together and went quicker. I made up ground and caught up with the group but towards the end of the race De Puniet caught me out on the brakes and I missed out on ninth place. I'm not happy to finish tenth, even though I have to say we've improved the feeling with the bike here. Thanks to the changes the team made to the suspension the balance of the bike was much more stable today and that made me more secure with my riding. Tomorrow we have a test and we'll be working hard towards the next race. Mugello is the team's home race and my objective will be to bring them some joy there."

Alex De Angelis (12th): "Despite the end position I'm happy with today because we managed to run half of the race together with the guys who are on satellite bikes just like mine. Unfortunately when it started to rain I had no choice but to drop my pace because I was getting a lot of chatter and I couldn't keep any feel for the front. I couldn't understand if it was the tyre losing grip or if it was just the water on the track that was causing it. Anyway, it made me lose contact with that group but I stayed in the points and that's positive."

Fausto Gresini -- TEAM MANAGER: "Another difficult race for us today and we don't take much from it. Unfortunately this time we haven't been able to match the pace we showed in the previous two days and we couldn't do much more in the race. Our potential is much higher, but we couldn't show it today. I'm really disappointed because the whole team had the possibility of a better result today but we will continue to fight and to help Shinya and Alex reach more satisfactory conclusions."

-credit: gersiniracing.com