TT Assen: Gresini Racing Friday notes

BOTH TEAM SAN CARLO HONDA GRESINI RC212V MACHINES IMPRESS ON FIRST DAY IN HOLLAND

The first day of free practice for the Dutch TT at Assen started out well for Team San Carlo Honda Gresini, with the two riders separated by a fraction of a second in the top half of the time sheets. Alex De Angelis lapped fifth fastest, just ahead of his team-mate Shinya Nakano in sixth. Alex recovered his good general feeling with the bike after some positive early work with the team and Bridgestone. The San Marino rider was on the pace from the opening laps and improved his rhythm in the afternoon. The Japanese rider was also satisfied after experimenting with a variety of technical solutions, before himself setting potential top-five pace.

Alex De Angelis (5th - 1'37''126): "I'm satisfied with this first day of free practice -- we've set the fifth fastest lap in both the morning and the afternoon session and we were fast from the first few laps. I like this track a lot -- I still hold the 250cc lap record here and I'm still adapting my style to MotoGP; this gives me great motivation. We've done a lot of work with Bridgestone and I'm satisfied because today I have been able to set a lot of laps on the same tyre. Tomorrow we will focus on smoothing out a few areas that can improve our performance even more."

Shinya Nakano (6th - 1'37''137): "The result today isn't bad and I'm happy to be sixth fastest. Like at Donington, here at Assen we've had a bit of a chattering problem. Tomorrow we'll have a look at the telemetry and see if we can solve it by working on the geometry and trying some different tyres out, with the objective of improving the balance of the bike."

-credit: gersiniracing.com