Minolta's Makoto Tamada Takes Tenth In His Home Race

Many people, all wearing the Konica Minolta HondaTeam colours, reached Motegi circuit to take their place in main straight tribune in front of Makoto Tamada’s pit box. The Japanese rider, started from a back position of the grid, was immediately able to make up some positions attempting to join the group preceding him. After the first ten laps, a persistent vibration at the rear tyre impeded him to be incisive for the rest of the race. Makoto Tamada finished tenth in Japan with a total time of 43’44.555” with a 30,970 seconds gap from the winner. After the fifteenth round of the 2006 MotoGP World Championship, Tamada is fourteenth in the Riders Classification equal in points with Toni Elias.

Gianluca Montiron – Konica Minolta Honda General Director

“Starting from the back of the grid it was not an easy race. Makoto was good at the beginning, afterwards he remained stable around the eleventh position maintaining the gap from the opponents constant till the end of the race. In respect to the practice sessions, we made a small step ahead but it is not satisfying for the target we had. Makoto complained a rear tyre vibration after the first ten laps causing a slight increase of his lap time. We were expecting a more incisive week end but we must be realistic and do our best for the remaining two races.”

Makoto Tamada – Konica Minolta Honda Rider

“I am really sorry for my home race result. I was competitive at the start only; I made up some positions during the first lap. The feeling with my bike was better than yesterday but not sufficient to turn with the necessary pace to stay with the leading group. It is very sad for me to race like this but the worst thing is that I have not found the way to overcome this situation yet.”

Giulio Bernardelle –konica Minolta Honda Technical Director

“Today we made a couple of small modifications to the set up of the Honda RC211V Makoto used for qualifying yesterday. From a technical point of view, we could not expect a clear improvement, even if Makoto, in this morning warm up, was back to turn on a pretty good pace. The problem is the same that rose so many times this year; it is relative to the lack of feeling with the bike impeding Makoto to race aggressively.”

GP of Japan, Race Classification:

1)L. CapirossiDucati43’13.585”
2)V. Rossi Yamaha43’18.673”
3)M. Melandri Honda43’21.963”
4)S. Gibernau Ducati 43’23.297”
5)N. Hayden Honda43’25.529”
10)M. Tamada Honda43’44.555”

Related Links
www.konicaminolta.com/motogp

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