Pacific GP. Repsol driver´s comments

Nieto: ‘Melandri has now an important advantage in the overall classification, but I think that there is nothing lost yet’.
Valentino Rossi. ‘The whole of the Rio weekend was like a dream. A very nice dream, and to win the Championship is incredible. When I first rode the RVC a year ago I thought it would be impossible. Honda has made a great bike and the team has worked so hard over the season. The Championship is really for a great team effort! We know the competition is getting better and better and the remaining races are very important for us to keep up the development momentum. For sure the pressure is off for the championship but I still want to have fun riding the bike and winning more races.’Tohru Ukawa. ‘Rio was very disappointing for me. We had had difficulties during qualifying but we were definitely going in the right direction towards the end of the sessions. I knew I had to make a good start in the race and did. Id made it up to fourth position on the second lap and had just overtaken McWilliams before crashing. I was having trouble down shifting – this really caused the accident. We need to run more tests on the clutch. It may not be up to such aggressive starts; its something we must sort out if we are to keep up the pressure and win the Team Championship prize.’Fonsi Nieto: ‘Melandri has now an important advantage in the overall classification, but I think that there is nothing lost yet. There are still four difficult races left and anything can happen. I still think that it is possible for me to get the title. I have left behind what happened in Brazil and we are back to the start with -45 points on our account. Motegi is a circuit I dont dislike, last year I finished fourth and I remember that it was a good race. In the following Grand Prix a lot depends on the weather. I only hope that the rain doesnt show up, so that everything can be normal and we can work at a hundred percent.’Toni Elias: ‘Motegi is a complicated circuit, it has strong brakings with fast corners and also a lot of slow corners, linked by short straights. Therefore it is necessary to have good overall settings, since youre constantly changing rhythm. I wasnt very lucky last year, I made a good start, putting myself second behind Ui, but in the fourth lap I crashed and consequently lost the leadership in the overall standings. I hope that everything will be better this year. We will have to work a lot on the settings of the bike if we want to be ready to fight for a place on the podium. I hope that the weather will be on our side and that it doesnt rain like in the recent races.’Dani Pedrosa. ‘With the title options almost evaporated, we now have to keep on concentrated and working hard. We have been suffering a lot of chassis and suspension problems in several races, so that our main objective will be to find solutions. Motegi is a difficult circuit, it is usually cold and it even rains. Last year I managed to get my second world championship podium there and finished third. I had just taken my first podium in Valencia a week before, so I arrived there with very high spirits.’Joan Olivé. ‘I know that it is cold and it usually rains in Japan in this time of the year, but I hope that the weather will respect us all this weekend without rain. I prefer dry races, because wet races are like a lottery, you have as much possibilities of finishing in the lead as finishing after the first lap without exactly knowing what has happened. Last year I got some points in Motegi thanks to my twelfth place and I hope to improve that result this year, having a lot more experience.’