Both Gresini Honda riders put in improved performances today. Shinya Nakano reaped the benefit of changes to the front fork settings and lowering the rear end ride height and ended the day half a second faster today Team-mate Alex De Angelis is, along with Dovizioso, a MotoGP debutant and has been impressive form at Sepang despite missing the November test at the track through injury. The Sanmarinese was consistently faster than his best time of yesterday, reducing his lap time by four-tenths of a second. De Angelis decided to take a rest from testing late on in the day when he suffered a jarred wrist while surviving a high speed ‘Tank-slapper’ when the RCV snapped sideways at a fast right hand corner.
Shinya Nakano, Gresini Honda: 2m 02.095s – 54 laps. “Finally I set good lap times on race tyres the bike felt good today, especially around noon but in the afternoon I could not set so fast times as the track temperature was too high, even for a qualifying tyre. But I did find a very good rear tyre with Bridgestone today. The chassis was the same as yesterday but we found some very good front fork settings. I lowered the ride height on the rear and that helped us improve the feeling a lot. We didn’t try much on the electronics; we will do that at Phillip Island (Australia) next week. Tomorrow we will try some different chassis options and work on tyre testing. Everything is going really well for us here.”
Alex De Angelis, Gresini Honda: 2m 02.914s – 41 laps.“This morning was very good because I improved my lap time; I was consistently faster than yesterday. We spent a lot of time working on the rear suspension settings and tried a lot of options, mainly spring rates, while running race tyres. The bike now behaves a lot better and I am better off the corners than before. We played with the electronics a little to get the bike to spin up and slide off the corners, that’s good for my riding style. I didn’t try any qualifying tyres today. ”
Official Times:
1. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda) 2’01.139
2. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha) 2’01.327
3. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha) 2’01.437
4. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha) 2’01.583
5. Casey STONER (Ducati) 2’01.638
6. John HOPKINS (Kawasaki) 2’01.874
7. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki) 2’01.917
8. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda) 2’02.006
9. Shinya NAKANO (Honda) 2’02.095
10. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda) 2’02.102
11. James TOSELAND (Yamaha) 2’02.276
12. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki) 2’02.371
13. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki) 2’02.579
14. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda) 2’02.914
15. Toni ELIAS (Ducati) 2’03.311
16. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati) 2’03.380
17. Olivier JACQUE (Kawasaki) 2’03.462
18. Silvan GUINTOLI (Ducati) 2’04.217
19. Tamaki SERIZAWA (Kawasaki) 2’04.382
20. Niccola CANEPA (Ducati) 2’04.427
