Nakano and De Angelis regroup after rain dampens progress

San Carlo Honda Gresini had a tough time when the rain came down in Donington, having been so impressive on Friday afternoon in the dry. Shinya Nakano and Alex de Angelis will now have to go about their business from tenth and thirteenth on the grid.

Shinya Nakano- Tenth

`Unfortunately the bad weather affected my riding in both free practice and qualifying today. Heavy rain this morning made it really difficult to control the bike and I had a small crash, fortunately escaping without injury. In the afternoon we changed the setting of the bike, improved the grip and that allowed me to go faster and set more respectable times. I lost my feeling with the bike a little bit, though, in the final few laps of qualifying because the track conditions were changing and there was less water on the surface. Tenth place on the grid was at least an improvement on my position this morning, when I was seventeenth. Now we have to look and see if we can improve on anything for tomorrow because the general feeling with the bike isn´t bad.´

Alex de Angelis - Thirteenth

`Qualifying today was a little unlucky and a fourth-row start is going to determine our race a little tomorrow. I´m clearly unsatisfied with the result because usually in wet conditions we are faster than this. Unfortunately we suffered some rear traction problems – the bike was spinning up under acceleration and we couldn´t find a solution before the end of qualifying. Now we will work on the information we have gathered to try and come up with something that suits my riding style. We´re strong under braking so if we can manage to improve the rear traction then we can look forward to a good race. Another comeback is not impossible because there are a lot of places to overtake at this track.´