MotoGP news

Repsol Honda expected more from qualifying

The Repsol Honda RC212Vs of Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden will line up for the start of Sunday's Grand Prix of China in fifth and ninth places respectively after an eventful one-hour qualifying session. Both factory Honda stars felt they could have been further forward were it not for different issues encountered on their fastest laps at the 5.281km (3.280-mile) Shanghai International Circuit. 

"The day hasn't gone quite as we'd hope and we didn't make much of an improvement over yesterday," said Hayden. "We tried a few changes to get the bike turning better and improve the edge grip, though we haven't found what we needed so that's not great. There are a lot of guys going fast and I'll definitely be sitting down with the team tonight to see if I can come up with a few ideas to improve the machine for tomorrow. My qualifying runs didn't go perfectly. My ideal time would have put me sixth but I was the next guy through after Vermeulen and Capirossi crashed. Looking back now it shouldn't have slowed me down but when I was approaching that corner there were bikes sliding across the track and they came together. I didn't know if one bike was going to stay in the middle of the track or if they were both going to slow down and really that ruined my second flying lap. I did my best lap on my first qualifying tyre and normally you can go faster on the second one. So, I need an awesome start tomorrow and we'll try to hang in there."

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