The MotoGP World Championship battle was rejoined today at Brno, with most of the riders now fully fit after three weeks away from the racetrack. But it was Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet who illustrated best the benefits of rest and relaxation on performance, finishing this afternoon's free practice session in second place, and just one tenth of a second down on reigning world champion, Valentino Rossi.
The 25-year-old Frenchman concentrated on the set-up of his Ninja ZX-RR during this morning's opening free practice session, switching between his two race machines frequently as he tested different combinations of suspension and engine settings, as well as a number of different tyres from Kawasaki's tyre partner, Bridgestone.
The Kawasaki rider continued this refinement process during the early part of the afternoon free practice session, before switching to the qualifying tyre on which he set his fastest time of the day to take second place on the timesheet.
But more important than his lap time was the renewed confidence instilled in de Puniet by his ability to get the best performance from Bridgestone's qualifying tyre this afternoon, as a lack of confidence in the increased level of grip offered by the qualifying tyres had an obvious negative effect on the Kawasaki pilot's qualifying performances ahead of the summer break.
De Puniet ended the day satisfied with both the race and qualifying set-up on his Ninja ZX-RR, but remains confident that more improvements can be made during free practice and qualifying tomorrow.
Also satisfied with his race set-up was de Puniet's Kawasaki teammate, Shinya Nakano. The 28-year-old Japanese rider finished this afternoon's free practice sixth fastest, after running in the top three on the timesheet for the majority of the hour-long session.
Nakano is running for the first time at Brno the latest specification Ninja ZX-RR chassis, which has been designed specifically by Kawasaki engineers in Japan to alleviate the rear traction problems experienced at some circuits earlier in the season.
After testing the revised chassis during this morning's practice session, Nakano will continue with this chassis for the remainder of the weekend, as he felt the changes improved both the rear traction and the feedback from the front and rear tyres, especially through Brno's high speed corners.
While some riders opted to run a qualifying tyre at the end of this afternoon's practice session, Nakano decided to continue refining the set-up of his Ninja ZX-RR with a long run on race tyres, leaving the soft rubber for tomorrow's all-important qualifying session.
Randy de Puniet: 2nd - 1'58.028"Today we've concentrated on testing as many different set-up and tyre options as possible on both bikes. For most of the time I was running pretty consistently at two minutes flat, but we didn't get a chance today to put the best tyres on the bike with the better set-up, so I'm confident that, when we do that tomorrow, we'll see a significant improvement in my lap time in race trim. Before the summer break I was struggling to get the best from the qualifying tyres, so we decided to run one this afternoon to see if I could regain the confidence I had earlier in the season. I'm happy to say that it worked, with the result that I finished today with the second fastest time. As I said, we still have some work to do on set-up during tomorrow's free practice session, and I hope I can repeat today's performance on a qualifier tomorrow afternoon."
Shinya Nakano: 6th - 1'59.240"In the past Brno has always been one of our problem tracks, but after today I'm not sure that's true anymore. The revised chassis is certainly an improvement, giving better grip and virtually eliminating the chatter we've had previously. To be honest, we've had to make very few changes to the set-up of my Ninja ZX-RR since this morning, which has given us more time to focus on evaluating the different tyres that Bridgestone have brought to this race. Compared to last year we also have more revs from the 2006 engine, and this makes the bike a lot easier to ride fast around this circuit. Over a long run this afternoon my times were pretty consistent, which puts us in a good position ahead of tomorrow's qualifying session. Overall, I'm happy with our progress today; it was a good way to start back after the summer break."
Free Practice - Combined Times1. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Camel Yamaha Team 1'57.871; 2. Randy de Puniet (FRA) Kawasaki Racing Team +0.157; 3. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati Marlboro Team +0.599; 4. Colin Edwards (USA) Camel Yamaha Team +0.980; 5. Kenny Roberts (USA) Team Roberts +1.248; 6. Shinya Nakano (JPN) Kawasaki Racing Team +1.369; 7. Carlos Checa (SPA) Tech 3 Yamaha +1.383; 8. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team +1.387; 9. Marco Melandri (ITA) Fortuna Honda +1.442; 10. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda Team +1.516
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