MotoGP
Turkish GP: Konica Minolta Honda Friday notes
Bad luck hampers Konica Minolta Honda in first practice Konica Minolta Honda are confident of bouncing-back from a series of incidents which has seen rider Shinya Nakano sit uncharacteristically down the order during first practice for ...
Published: Apr 21, 2007, 12:10 PM
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Bad luck hampers Konica Minolta Honda in first practice
Konica Minolta Honda are confident of bouncing-back from a series of incidents which has seen rider Shinya Nakano sit uncharacteristically down the order during first practice for Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix. With the first session at the Istanbul circuit damp it was only in the final 30-minutes of the session that riders ventured out onto the track. With temperatures low, a number of riders were caught out by the conditions. Unfortunately, a technical problem with Nakano's Honda RCV212V meant that he had to use his number two machine, which wasn't set- up with the fork settings and tyres the Team wanted to test for Sunday's race. In the afternoon session bad-luck struck again, when Shinya crashed early on in the session - once more before any useful information on the chosen set-up was gained. If the Team have two incident-free sessions tomorrow, they're confident of a turn-around in time for Sunday's race.
Gianluca Montiron - Team Manager Konica Minolta Honda
"We have suffered some very bad luck today! This morning the damp conditions meant that many riders didn't go out until the final part of the session and this meant we didn't have much of an opportunity to analyse and prepare for the race on Sunday. Tomorrow it is very important to make the best use of the both sessions for us to decide and understand our tyre strategy for race day. Today we saw how the new tyre rule can affect the results. Tomorrow the temperatures are expected to change again during the day, so the qualifying session in the afternoon will be very interesting as people will push hard to get the best result they can, while still deciding their own tyre strategy for the race. Right now engine technician is analysing all the data to understand what happened to our engine this morning."
Shinya Nakano - Rider, Konica Minolta Honda (40 laps - 1' 56.936")
"Track conditions were poor this morning so most riders only went out on track during the last 30 minutes or so and this and our technical problem with the engine of our number one bike didn't allow me to get much in the way of useful data for the afternoon session. In the afternoon I was pushing hard to try and find the limit and it was then that I crashed at the final corner. Maybe the conditions were still not perfect from the morning. We now have much to do tomorrow as we have to work out what tyres we want to use for the race which may be difficult as temperatures are expected to change again tomorrow and again on Sunday so these factors may well determine the results of Sunday's race."
Giulio Bernardelle - Technical Director, Konica Minolta Honda
"It's been a tough day. This morning the track was still wet and then when the conditions were improving we had a technical problem with the engine and we had to stop using our number one machine. Our second bike had different settings and tyres from what we wanted to try, so we didn't really gain any useful information. In the afternoon Shinya crashed on the machine with the fork settings and tyres we wanted to test early in the session, so again we had to revert back to a bike, which didn't have the settings on it that we wanted to evaluate. The fact that we haven't yet had a chance to try the tyre or settings we want to gives us hope for tomorrow, but we now have a lot to do in the two sessions."
-credit: kmh
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