Pacific GP. Driver´s comments

Valentino Rossi: ‘Anyway we have tomorrow and we go for the lap time at the end’.
Valentino Rossi, 1’48.891 sec, 2nd: ‘We have a few problems on the bike but nothing that we can’t get right for tomorrow. In the braking we need to do some work. When I brake the front goes too far down and the back is very light. And in braking the bike always goes right sideways – not sure why! I just don’t have full control in the braking. We also need more edge grip in places on the track. Anyway – we have tomorrow and we go for the lap time at the end!’Nicky Hayden, 1’50.171 sec, 11th: ‘Not too bad for the first day. We made a bit of progress and I’m sure we have some more comin’ tomorrow. We ran what I would say was pretty much race set-up and got some good consistent times. I feel pretty good on the track. I have been here once before but the conditions were real bad so was not much good for data and was my first time on the bike anyway. At least I knew which way the track goes which makes a change. We’re also runnin’ the noisier pipes which make the engine feel a little stronger. It’ll also be good in the race as I’ll hear my bike over the other nosier ones that’ll be good.’Toni Elias, 1´53.545 sec, 2nd: ‘I wasn’t satisfied with the times set this morning nor with the setting we had chosen for the bike. This is also a very different circuit to those we have been to so far and we had to make several changes to the settings. But I’m happy because we’ve been able to react this afternoon and I think that tomorrow we’ll be able to keep on improving. In the end I’m satisfied with the development of this first day. But we cannot relax, because the Japanese riders will be rivals to be taken into account and, although Poggiali has not been in the front today, he will surely show up in the race, as it already happened in Rio. It’s a difficult Championship but I’ll keep on fighting until the end. There are hundred points at stake and we’ll make things difficult for all our rivals.’Fonsi Nieto, 1´55.925 sec, 15th: ‘I’ve had many problems with the suspensions. It wasn’t bad this morning but we made some changes in the afternoon to improve the bike’s behaviour and it was worse. Now I’ll sit down with the team to look for solutions for tomorrow. I haven’t found the rhythm during the practice and in the final laps I used a soft compound in order to improve my times but there was a lot of traffic and there was nothing I could do. I finished in a back position and it’s actually been the worst practice result of this season. I hope that everything will be better tomorrow.’Sebastián Porto, 1.54´888 sec, 8th: ‘The practices have been quite good today and we’ve started the timed session clocking a good time. Then we made some tests with the suspensions but they didn’t work out well. Towards the end of the session we managed to set the bike so that it worked quite better. I made good use of every single minute of the timed session, clocking good times until the last lap. But I lost some tenths in the last section because I found Heidolf on the straight riding slowly. I had to brake to pass him and I lost the time I had made up. I don’t know whether I would have been able to get a provisional front row place today but I’m sure that I could have lapped faster. The bike is working well although I hope it’ll be working even better tomorrow. We are doing a good job in general.’Héctor Faubel, 1.56´751 sec, 20th: ‘We’ve had several suspension problems during the session. When it seemed that we’d been able to solve them I changed the tyre to do a fast lap and I went off the track in a corner. I lost a pretty good chance to clock a good time, but let’s hope for good weather tomorrow to be able to improve the time set today. With regard to the setting, we have a problem with the front suspension but we hope to fix it before tomorrow.’Joan Olivé, 1.58´013 sec, 27th: ‘It’s been quite bad today, we’ve had problems with the suspensions. I don’t feel comfortable on the bike. At the end of the session, the tyres weren’t marked at all and it shouldn’t be like that after a practice. They were like new and that means that the bike isn’t working well. Now the mechanics and I are going to analyse what happened; we’ll work on it and then we’ll look for a setting that makes me feel comfortable and lap faster tomorrow.’Dani Pedrosa, 1.58´998 sec, 2nd: ‘I had some problems with the front brake this afternoon and therefore I frequently had to stay longer on the brakes during the session. In general I had to begin braking earlier than usual and even that wasn’t enough. We also had some problems due to the intense traffic on the track. There were so many riders lapping together that sometimes I even had to stop during a fast lap. I hope to have more luck tomorrow. I finally managed to clock a good time, but the truth is that today the problem with the brakes was quite awkward for me, because I had to stay on the brakes quite long in the corners and that’s dangerous, because you’re inclining the bike at the same time.’Héctor Barberá, 1.59´771 sec, 7th: ‘We’ve had several problems with the settings today but things worked out fine in the end. I also had a light crash in the first lap of the timed session. A wild card rider stopped right in front of me and I couldn’t avoid hitting him with my front tyre. I was lapping behind him, in his slipstream, and he stopped two hundred metres before the corner, although you usually brake hundred metres before. I was lapping on the inside and when he stopped I couldn’t enter the corner because I was lapping very fast, so I hit him in the side. The run-off area of that corner isn’t big and when I saw that the wall was only 5 metres away I laid down and crashed. I hit my back in the crash. Fourteen minutes before the end of the session I decided to finish but I was able to set a fast time anyway. It’s been a shame because after the crash the engine’s setting wasn’t OK and both the handlebar and the lever where bent. But I’m happy with the provisional seventh place. And even if we’re not been able to laps as much as we’d have wanted, at least we’ve been able to set the chassis.’Pablo Nieto, 2.00´670 sec, 17th: ‘The practices have been average, we’ve had a minor problem with the bike and I haven’t been able to improve my times. But the most important is that I’ve been able to work on a good line that the team is working at a hundred percent and that’s something you notice and you appreciate a lot. Let’s see if we’re able to improve tomorrow and to be a bit more in the front. The track is a bit dirty, but I’m sure that once the MotoGP and the 250cc bikes have finished, the track will be in a better shape for tomorrow.’