planetearth
There Can Be Only One
Number of posts : 3271
Registration date : 2007-02-03
 |  Subject: Hopkins: The pain level has been high...  Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:20 am | |
| - Quote :
- John Hopkins braved the pain of his hand injury to record an excellent fourth fastest time after the first two free practice sessions for the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix.
"The pain level in my hand has been quite high so my pain threshold has had to withstand that all day," explained the Rizla Suzuki rider, who was 0.508secs behind fastest man Valentino Rossi. "I've been working hard with the MotoGP clinic and my trainer Johnny Louch, and Team Physio Dean Miller, have been doing a tremendous job getting me back to fitness.
"Bridgestone has also done an exceptional job here this week by bringing some really good tyres, they have stepped it up massively from what we had here at the test. I think this is the first time in my career that I have only used two rear tyres in a whole day! I ran one for this morning session and another for the whole of the afternoon and set my fastest lap-time on the last lap in both cases. We still have a couple more things to do to the bike tomorrow but we will be ready for qualifying and I'll be doing every thing I can to bring the pain in my hand down. Then we'll be ready to go racing when Saturday comes!" he declared.
Meanwhile, team-mate Chris Vermeulen battled setbacks of a mechanical kind, with he and his crew working hard to overcome a braking problem in the morning session. The Australian lost quite a bit of time from the session but was able to get back into the flow of things as the afternoon progressed, but only set the twelfth fastest time.
"In the morning I had a bit of a brake issue on both bikes and it cost us a bit of time getting it sorted," confirmed Chris. "This afternoon we managed to get it all sorted and I was able to get into more of a rhythm. We have found a good direction with the bike and the tyres and we have some good ideas of things to try tomorrow."
"John in particular has done especially well today, and has only used two rear tyres all day," commented team manager Paul Denning. "He set his fastest times on the last laps of each session, so in terms of consistency the possibility of improving our race pace seems very positive. Chris used the same strategy as John today - by doing lots of laps on one tyre. He is still looking for a bit more pace but the crew know where he needs to go and I think Chris has the ability to take that time jump when everything feels right with the bike. The competition at the head of the field - especially Valentino - looks extremely strong. But everybody is getting closer lap-by-lap and we'll definitely be amongst the group challenging for a podium come race day!"
Qualifying will take place on Friday with the race on Saturday. Crash.net | |
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