Impeded by the uncertain weather conditionsSepang under the rain again. Thursday morning the riders have found the track still wet from the night storms.
Makoto Tamada, rider of the Konica Minolta Honda Team, has only been able to start testing around midday, forced to renounce to the first part of the intensive scheduled test programme.
After three hours approximately, another tropical shower definitively marked the end of the winter test in Malaysia.
The 28 laps carried out by Makoto Tamada in this session, have scarcely served to continue the test of the new rear Michelin tyres started yesterday. 2.02.870 has been the today`s best lap time of the Japanese rider.
Although the time wasted has permitted to do less than half of the scheduled work, Tamada and the technical staff of the Konica Minolta Honda Team can be satisfied of the first positive impressions obtained from the 2006 technical package.
Now, the Konica Minolta Honda team will have to optimize and concentrate its work during the IRTA tests planned for the beginning of next month in Barcellona and Jerez de la Frontera. These Spanish tests will be the last before the start of the season.
Makoto Tamada – Konica Minolta Honda Rider (2.02.870 – 28 Laps)
“Even today, the weather has not been so merciful. I feel sorry because we could not complete the programme of work we have scheduled for today. This implies a careful and an additional planning of the work to carry out during the last pre- season testing in Spain. Anyway, I can say that after these two 2006 tests, the feeling I have reached with the new RC211V seems to be already good and the way in which we choose to develop the bike setting seems the right one to obtain a high level of competitiveness shortly”.
Giulio Bernardelle – Konica Minolta Honda Technical Director
“During these three days tests in Malaysia, we have been able to get to a first definition of the new RC211V set-up; the reached performance level and the potential coming out from the analysis of the acquired data, make us feel confident. Unfortunately, the different storms characterizing these days did not allow us to test the tyres in depth as we could do. In respect to this, the performances obtained here by some other riders supplied by Michelin, compared to Makoto`s lap times, allow us to understand that the competitiveness level we can develop before the beginning of the season is, with no doubt, really high.”
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makoto,
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sepang,
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