Sepang : Yamaha Tech3 - RaceThe Tech 3 Yamaha Team led by Spaniard Carlos Checa put in another typically determined effort during the Malaysian Grand Prix held in sweltering conditions at the Sepang circuit in an absolutely enthralling race won in style by fellow Yamaha
rider Valentino Rossi.
Checa managed to finish in 12th position in front of factory rider Makoto Tamada while team mate James Ellison had another difficult weekend to finish just out of the points in 16th spot.
In a positive for the team to take to the next round at Phillip Island next weekend is that the lap times of Carlos were very similar to Colin Edwards who is also on a Yamaha rider and finished just two places behind him.
Carlos Checa (12th Fastest lap 2'03.466): "I'm quite satisfied with the job I did today. I feel that we raced on the limit of what we have as the bike seemed a little down on power today but the tyre performance was quite constant so considering this I feel I did my best. We made no mistakes and we found some more good information for Dunlop to work with so working like this we have found something better for the remaining races."
James Ellison (16th Fastest lap 2'04.692): "I'm very disappointed to be honest. We've been working really hard all weekend to cure this handling problem as no matter what we do we cant get enough weight on the rear of the bike to make it steer into the corner but that has been going on all year. The frustrating thing is that no matter what we try with the setup we can't get the bike to handle properly.
I have to thank my team because they have been working very hard all year attempting to get the most out of the bike."
Hervé Poncharal - Tech 3 Yamaha Team Director: "It was another interesting weekend and as I have said many times this year this is a learning year so we have to expect that we won't have perfect weekends. Today we were 30 seconds to the front and we were very consistent with the Dunlop tyres. We lack a bit of performance and stability but we are now having a lot of durability so things are improving. I'm reasonably happy and we are definitely making progress every race. Stability used to be the worst problem but this has improved a lot so now we have to find half a second for the first ten laps so then we will for sure be a lot closer with many riders in front of us."
Press Release Yamaha
