MotoGP news
Gresini hoped for more in qualifying
21 June 2008After recording excellent results on the opening day of free practice at the British Grand Prix, bad weather hit the hopes of Team San Carlo Honda Gresini this afternoon. A day of drizzle saw Shinya Nakano and Alex De Angelis qualify in tenth and thirteenth position respectively on a wet track, which prevented them from repeating their excellent form in the dry from yesterday.
"Unfortunately the bad weather affected my riding in both free practice and qualifying today," said Nakano. "Heavy rain this morning made it really difficult to control the bike and I had a small crash, fortunately escaping without injury. In the afternoon we changed the setting of the bike, improved the grip and that allowed me to go faster and set more respectable times. I lost my feeling with the bike a little bit, though, in the final few laps of qualifying because the track conditions were changing and there was less water on the surface. Tenth place on the grid was at least an improvement on my position this morning, when I was seventeenth. Now we have to look and see if we can improve on anything for tomorrow because the general feeling with the bike isn't bad."
Alex De Angelis commented, "Qualifying today was a little unlucky and a fourth-row start is going to determine our race a little tomorrow. I'm clearly unsatisfied with the result because usually in wet conditions we are faster than this. Unfortunately we suffered some rear traction problems - the bike was spinning up under acceleration and we couldn't find a solution before the end of qualifying. Now we will work on the information we have gathered to try and come up with something that suits my riding style. We're strong under braking so if we can manage to improve the rear traction then we can look forward to a good race. Another comeback is not impossible because there are a lot of places to overtake at this track."
Team boss Fausto Gresini added, "I was expecting better results from qualifying today - third and fourth row starts mean we face another battle tomorrow. I just hope that the conditions are dry because in the wet there are a few aspects we need to work on to improve the setting of the bikes. Alex couldn't find enough traction to set a good pace this afternoon and we need to work hard to make him faster. I'm disappointed that after such a good showing in free practice we couldn't put together a good pace in qualifying and secure good grid positions because the ones we have certainly don't help."
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