German GP - Sachsenring, First Qualifying Practice

GERMAN GP
First Qualifying Practice
Sachsenring, 21st of July

TADAYUKI OKADA IN PROVISIONAL 8TH PLACE

The first day of practice for this week-end's German G.P. was not very successful for the Repsol YPF Honda team. Japanese ace Okada gave the team its best result with eight place on the provisional grid. Gibernau was a long way further down, in 15th place, while World Champion Alex Crivillé was extremely unhappy with his 17th place.

ALEX CRIVILLE, 17TH 1'24.813

"This is really bad. I¹m just not comfortable on the bike. In the corners, I¹m not going where I want to go but where the bike is forcing me to go. There¹s not really much more I can say. I¹m just too tense on the bike. I need to relax and concentrate more. Usually, if the bike doesn¹t work you end up loosing half a second or something, but not as much as this! I¹ve never been so far down on the grid! I can¹t explain or justify it, it¹s just down me. Now I hope it doesn¹t rain tomorrow so I can improve my time."

TADAYUKI OKADA, 8TH 1¹24.563

"We¹re still a little bit behind the leaders so we need to improve. Our problem is still with the settings. Basically, we¹re trying to find the right suspension settings for this track and to enable us to go fast. Right now, we¹re still using the same basic settings as we used at Donington. They¹ve got a new surface here and the track still seems a little dirty in some places. That is not making our job of setting the bike up any easier. But the track should improve tomorrow, provided it doesn¹t rain, so I think we can hope for a better result and an improved set-up."

SETE GIBERNAU, 15TH 1¹24.754

"We¹re 1.2 seconds off the pace so there¹s obviously no way we can be happy with that. On the other hand, there is good news for us. It now seems that the bike is starting to work much better for me. We¹ve made changes which have helped us bring back some of the feeling I had last year and during this winter. Now I¹m hoping that the rain stays away tomorrow because what I really need is to be able to ride the bike instead of having to change it all the time. But in order to be able to do that, I first of all had to get back a little of the feeling I had before on the bike. The new layout is okay. The chicane was better for me because it was more physical, but it doesn¹t make that much difference."

<pre> RESULTS SACHSENRING ­ 500 CC 1 Valentino Rossi Nastro Azurro Honda Honda 1¹23.539 2 Kenny Roberts Telefonica Movistar Suzuki Suzuki 1¹23.750 3 Alex Barros Emerson Honda Pons Honda 1¹23.878 4 Loris Capirossi Emerson Honda Pons Honda 1¹24.167 5 Max Biaggi Marlboro Yamaha Team Yamaha 1¹24.257 6 J. vd Goorbergh Rizla Honda Honda 1¹24.393 7 Regis Laconi Red Bull Yamaha WCM Yamaha 1¹24.561 8 Tadayuki Okada Repsol YPF Honda Honda 1¹24.563 9 Tetsuya Harada Blu Aprilia Team Aprilia 1¹24.577 10 Carlos Checa Marlboro Yamaha Team Yamaha 1¹24.578 11 Norick Abe Antena 3 Yamaha d¹Antin Yamaha 1¹24.611 12 Nobuatsu Aoki Telefonica Movistar Suzuki Suzuki 1¹24.657 13 Luca Cadalora Proton Team KR Modenas KR3 1¹24.702 14 J. McWilliams Blu Aprilia Team Aprilia 1¹24.737 15 Sete Gibernau Repsol YPF Honda Team Honda 1¹24.754 17 Alex Crivillé Repsol YPF Honda Team Honda 1¹24.813