Shinya Nakano suffered a disappointing Malaysian Grand Prix today. The 30-year-old Konica Minolta Honda rider spent most of the 21-lap race struggling with front-end issues at the 3.447-mile circuit, which meant he was unable to hold onto the points-winning positions. The Team will now re-group and check the data from today's race to make set-up improvements to their 800cc RC212V machine in time for the final round of the 2007 MotoGP championship in Valencia in two weeks time.
"We could see our expectations for the end of the race, because Shinya started off losing a few positions and then making some places back," said team manager
Gianluca Montiron. "He was able to make his best lap-time two laps from the end when Anthony West was chasing him. Shinya was finally overtaken by West, which meant that we didn't take any points today. This is very unfortunate for us so close to the end of the season when every point counts. I was very surprised by Shinya's actions after the race and his reaction when he came back to the pit-box. This is not a correct style of behaviour for a professional rider because I have to protect the image of my sponsors and cannot tolerate this sort of attitude. Also for the Team who work so hard for him this is not what they want to see."
Shinya Nakano commented, "Today has been very difficult for the Team and myself and I am very disappointed with the result as Sepang is one of my favourite tracks. This morning we improved some settings on the front of the bike and it did feel better than before. I was fighting with Carlos Checa and Nobuatsu Aoki but I couldn't follow them so finally I just tried to keep my lap times consistent and hold position to get that last point. In the last couple of laps Anthony West passed me for the last point. During the race we once more had chattering problems from the front-end of the bike and the machine hasn't turned as well as I would have wanted. As a result my corner speed has been slow and we've struggled a lot. We will all work hard to turn this into a positive result for the last race at Valencia."
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