Shinya 'stops trying', seals seventh.

Subject: Shinya 'stops trying', seals seventh. Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:55 pm

Quote :: New Konica Minolta Honda rider Shinya Nakano enjoyed his best competitive day yet on an RC212V - after he 'stopped trying so hard' and qualified seventh for Sunday's Spanish Grand prix.

"That was so much better than yesterday!" smiled Shinya, just 17th fastest on Friday. "Overnight the team explained what my problem has been. I think that maybe I was pushing too hard in some areas. From the data and by following some of the top guys I could see that something was missing from my technique with this new 800cc bike. I was losing a little confidence, but then I could see that I was entering the corners way too fast and then as a result I could not get on the throttle early enough. As soon as I stopped trying so hard and relaxed a little the times improved."

"We realised how to get the best from our technical package and for Shinya this meant not being so aggressive and hard on the brakes and use a little more throttle from mid-corner," confirmed team technical director Giulio Bernardelle. "Both race tyres have shown good, consistent times in our race simulations and I think the top five or six riders will be around the 1min 41.1secs bracket and this is Shinya's potential too.

"Although he wasn't the fastest on race tyres, he was not pushing hard, so the lap times came easy for him, our problem was realising how we could do the lap-time, which we hope we've solved now! The start is essential here, so today we also practised some starts which have shown great improvement. From seventh on the grid, Shinya is on the perfect side of the track for turn one, so we are hopeful that he gets a good start," he concluded.

Crash

» Madrid stops for Repsol Honda launch.