MotoGP
Qatari GP: Konica Minolta Honda Friday notes
High-speed crash compromises Konica Minolta Honda grid slot A fall for Konica Minolta Honda rider Shinya Nakano hampered the Team's effort to find a good grid position during today's final qualifying session for the opening race of the ...
Published: Mar 9, 2007, 9:37 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
High-speed crash compromises Konica Minolta Honda grid slot
A fall for Konica Minolta Honda rider Shinya Nakano hampered the Team's effort to find a good grid position during today's final qualifying session for the opening race of the 2007 season. With just twenty-one minutes to go in the final timed session before tomorrow's race, Shinya suffered a dramatic high-speed crash while in fourth-gear at turn 13. Watching from the pits, his Konica Minolta Honda Team immediately prepared Nakano's second Honda RC212V while the 29-year- old Japanese rider got a lift back to the pits to resume qualifying. With the new tyre rules in place, each Michelin and Bridgestone-shod rider had only two super-sticky qualifying tyres available to him and despite moving back up to seventh position with just minutes to go, a series of record-breaking laps from the front-runners saw Shinya demoted to 11th place overall.
Gianluca Montiron - Team Manager Konica Minolta Honda
"Shinya-san's situation was not so bad and then not so good! Just before the crash we sent him out on a new rear tyre and he was making a good lap time, improving again with a personal best lap when maybe he pushed too much and lost the front at high speed. This compromised the rest of the session for us. Psychologically it's difficult to go straight back out on a bike and go fast, especially on a qualifying tyre and on the second bike so I think perhaps we couldn't use 100% of our potential today. Tomorrow is another day so we have to work in warm-up to refine our set- up and choose a race tyre for tomorrow. We could have wished for better today, but it's a long championship."
Shinya Nakano - Rider, Konica Minolta Honda (46 laps - 1'56.306" - 11th position)
"Despite the crash I feel OK and I'm not hurt. It was a fast crash on one of the right-hand corners, so I was lucky. Compared to my crash down the Mugello straight a few years ago, it was a slow one! I was trying to improve my lap time and was adjusting my riding style a little but perhaps it was the wrong thing to do as I lost the front. I'm obviously a little disappointed, as I wanted something better from today for the Team and myself. After the crash I could improve my lap time with a qualifying tyre, but now we have to look forward to tomorrow and use morning warm-up to choose a tyre for the race."
Giulio Bernardelle - Technical Director, Konica Minolta Honda
"Were expecting much more from today, so we are a little disappointed, but I think we are not yet seeing the full potential of our rider and the bike. We have some small details to solve on our machine settings and we also need to finalise our choice for rear tyre tomorrow morning as the crash has set us back a little. After the morning session we discussed about trying to increase our corner entry speed and on turn 13 Shinya was testing this theory. The telemetry showed a small mistake with a gear- shift so maybe this caused the crash. The second bike that Shinya had to use isn't his favourite and the rear settings were a little different so again our potential wasn't realised. For tomorrow the set-up of our machine is 95% there. We just need to make some small adjustments on rear suspension and then we will test a couple of tyres to find our best combination for the race."
-credit: kmh
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Qatari GP: Practice 3 times
Next article Qatari GP: Pramac D'Antin race notes
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Shinya Nakano
Nakano and De Crem To Drive For Oak Racing
WEC
WEC
Nakano and De Crem To Drive For Oak Racing
Qatari GP: Gresini Racing preview
MotoGP
MotoGP
Qatari GP: Gresini Racing preview
2009 Final standings
World Superbike
World Superbike
2009 Final standings
Latest news
Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
5 h
Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell
Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
8 h
Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction
William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
8 h
William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix
Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 9 h
Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe