Sepang : Konica Minolta Honda - RaceThe washout causing the cancellation of the Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying session of yesterday made space today to the typical sunshine of this country with temperatures reaching 50°C on the ground.
In the twenty minutes' warm
up of this morning, the Konica Minolta Honda Team together with Tamada, finished the tests to decide the best tyre to be used for the race without succeeding in make the rider recover the good feeling demonstrated before the fall occurred on Saturday morning.
Started from thirteenth on the grid, Makoto Tamada remained with the second group of riders the entire race having no possibility to approach the leading group. The Japanese rider finished fourteenth with a total race time of 43'56.606.
Gianluca Montiron – Konica Minolta Honda General Director: "After just some laps, we realized that today it would have been a particularly suffered race because our lap times have never been competitive. The rider complained a lack of grip since the beginning. I can state that, here in Sepang, we have never turned with such high lap times as today since when we made here the winter tests Anyway, we keep working at the top to permit Makoto to reach the positive turning point since the next race."
Makoto Tamada: "Right from the start, I had a lack of grip conditioning my performance. This is not a very good moment. The change of the track conditions during the week end cause a great modification of my feeling with the bike."
Giulio Bernardelle – Konica Minolta Honda Technical Director: "We can not be satisfied of the race result especially considering that on Friday Tamada demonstrated to be competitive. I think that the fall occurred on Saturday morning, caused by a front rear lack of grip, was negatively determining. This morning, after the warm up, we discussed with Michelin and preferred to choose a rear tyre with better edge grip performance in corners. After having heard our rider's comment, evidently, even this choice was not sufficient."
Konica Minolta Honda
