MotoGP news
Tough tenth for Nakano
25 March 2007 / Results / PhotosShinya Nakano took his Honda RC212V to a tough tenth place in today's Spanish GP at Jerez. The 29-year-old Japanese rider's confidence took a knock during warm-up with a harmless crash on the last lap of the morning session and this affected his performance at the start of the race.
Starting from seventh on the grid, Nakano held that position before slipping back to 14th place as the race progressed. Like qualifying, the race was close and hard-fought with Nakano battling with the likes of Chris Vermeulen, Kenny Roberts Junior and Alex Barros.
Eventually after a race-long scrap Nakano's confidence began to return and he overtook Barros on the last lap to claim tenth place - identical to his result in the first round at Qatar. "Another difficult race!" said Nakano. "My warm-up crash happened when I tried to carry more speed into the corner and lost the front. I made a good start in the race, but after a crash it's not so easy to push so hard from the beginning, so I lost a few places. When I started to get a better feeling from the bike, I tried to push harder again but we were having some chattering problems from the front. I tried to follow other riders and hung in there and on the final lap overtook Barros for 10th."
"Towards the end our rhythm wasn't so bad, but now I'm looking for more entry speed in the corner. Overall the engine is good and working consistently but now I just need to find a better feeling from the chassis. It's been an up and down weekend, but the Team are helping me and we will work together to solve our problems. It's important to get these points, but as soon as we have the bike to my liking, then I will push much harder."
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