A promising opening day was a distant memory by this afternoon for Carlos Checa on his Tech 3 Yamaha YZF-M1 after he recorded his worst qualifying performance of the year. Carlos will start from 17th position on the grid as fellow Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi stormed to pole position with an astounding lap time over two seconds below his own current lap record. The team battled valiantly to overcome handling problems that surfaced in Carlos's bike during the morning's final free practice session only for the situation to be magnified during the afternoon's critical qualifying session. It wasn't all bad news for the Tech 3 Yamaha Team as James Ellison managed to subtract over two seconds off his time from yesterday although he is only one spot ahead of his teammate in 16th position.
James Ellison (16th, 1'59.011, 24 laps)"It's been a long time coming and obviously I'm happing to be where I am in front of Carlos but you can see the guy has got a lot of problems - he is never three seconds off the pace. We both have things to work on I'm having chattering problems but we have managed to get it down to just two areas. We really need to find out where the problem is coming from. Everytime we improve the chatter I go half a second quicker, it's not just a little step. It's the quickest I've been around here and I know there is more that can come off but I can't believe how quick Rossi is going around here. That is incredible. I've come with the same attitude as ever to push as hard as I can but fortunately for this circuit has been quite good as we have been able to eliminate most of the chatter and I can push as hard as I want. We are by no means on the pace I would like to be but at least we are moving in the right direction. I don't want to change too much now and ruin it for the race. I've done 30 laps on the front tyre so I'm happy with that as it is the bigger tyre as well, so it's just a matter of finding a decent rear tyre for the distance.
Carlos Checa (17th, 1'59.289, 22 laps)"I think that is the worst qualifying session of my entire life. I don't know what happened but everything we tried nothing worked. It is very frustrating after how we felt after the first day when we were seventh fastest. Today was a major disappointment because I couldn't lap quicker on qualifiers today that what we did yesterday We haven't got too much time to find a cure and even if we do it will be very hard work from so far back on the grid. I think I will have to put it down to one of those days and hope we can work a bit of magic overnight. Saying that it mightn't be as bad as it seems because the lap times during the race will be nothing like the qualifying laps so that may help us to stay in touch if I can get a good start and stick with the pack
Herve Poncharal - Tech 3 Yamaha Team DirectorClearly this is not a good day for the team. We were expecting a lot better especially after the last race in the US before the break. Although yesterday we did quite a good pace we have never been on the pace. We seem to have a lot of chatter and we didn't find any real solution to get rid of it and that is what is upsetting Carlos the most. On the other hand, I am quite happy with James. He has been using his qualifying tyre really well to be over a second quicker than on his race tyre. That is the only good point of the weekend so far. We have been struggling. We're nowhere near where we are supposed to be. Dunlop brought many, many new products but we haven't been able to test them properl. We are not so far off on race tyres so hopefully that will help us tomorrow. The only good news is that we have another two days to test here after the race to try and understand what is happening and to fix the problem for the next three overseas races. The other thing that may help us a bit is the weather. We do not pray for rain but if the situation remains the same the race will be quite difficult for us. We will be looking for a few points and then to work hard on Monday and Tuesday.
Circuit Length: 5403
Temp: 25
Weather: Dry
Qualifying 1: 2006 MotoGP Brno 19/08/2006 1 Valentino Rossi Yamaha ITA 1'56.191
2 Loris Capirossi Ducati ITA 1'56.441
3 Kenny Roberts Team Robert KR USA 1'56.603
4 Nicky Hayden Honda USA 1'56.694
5 Shinya Nakano Kawasaki JPN 1'56.770
6 Toni Elias Honda ESP 1'56.875
7 John Hopkins Suzuki USA 1'56.913
8 Colin Edwards Yamaha USA 1'56.967
9 Daniel Pedrosa Honda ESP 1'57.139
10 Randy De Puniet Kawasaki FRA 1'57.185
11 Marco Melandri Honda ITA 1'57.221
12 Casey Stoner Honda AUS 1'57.679
13 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki AUS 1'57.894
14 Alex Hofmann Ducati GER 1'57.906
15 Makato Tamada Honda JPN 1'58.239
16 James Ellison Yamaha GBR 1'59.011
17 Carlos Checa Yamaha ESP 1'59.289
Related Linkswww.yamaha-racing.com
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