Italian GP: Gresini Honda qualifying report

Team San Carlo Honda Gresini's two riders will start the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello tomorrow from the fourth and fifth row of the grid respectively. Marco Simoncelli moved up the order to qualify eleventh after improving his feeling for the RC212V. The Italian is satisfied and confident about tomorrow's race because he knows he still has room for improvement. His compatriot Marco Melandri was in more trouble today, struggling to find a way forward after a difficult opening day, with front-end confidence a major issue. Tomorrow both riders will aim to make improvements in the warm-up as they look to take a starring role in the race, as they did two weeks ago at Le Mans.

Marco Simoncelli:

"This afternoon went much better than yesterday and this morning. You could say we have finally seen the light and now we hope to improve a little more for tomorrow. I am satisfied and happy. At the end of the technical debrief we will make a few decisions about the plan for tomorrow's warm-up and try to gain a few more tenths. The circuit and the atmosphere are both fantastic here, the only bad thing is the bumps. Obviously the incident with Valentino will take away from the show. Ever since I began watching racing I've never seen a race without him in it. I'm really gutted for him and all I can say is 'get well soon'."

Marco Melandri:

"That was a really bad session for us and since we arrived at Mugello we haven't found anything to make even the slightest improvement. We started out badly and only got worse. It will be a difficult race tomorrow but in the warm-up we'll try again to find something. At the moment I'm not very confident and it will be difficult for me to even fight for the top six."

Fausto Gresini:

"It has definitely been tough for us all weekend and I'm not happy with the positions of my riders on the grid for our home Grand Prix. I would have liked to offer San Carlo, our other team partners and the fans something more but unfortunately this is our situation at the moment and we will try and analyse how to do better. Having said that Simoncelli did take some important steps forward this afternoon and if he can improve again in the morning he'll be able to have a good race. Melandri on the other hand is still in a hole and we can't seem to find what he's looking for. All we can do is study the data and try something different in the morning that we hope can help him ride as he wants. I hope we achieve that because this is an important Grand Prix for us."

-source: gresini