Race pace provides encouragement for San Carlo Honda Gresini

Shinya Nakano was the highest placing San Carlo Honda Gresini rider on Saturday in Misano, with local rider Alex de Angelis down in thirteenth. Both are out to make up positions on Sunday, and are upbeat about their chances to do so.

Shinya Nakano - Eighth

`Even though qualifying wasn´t perfect, today was definitely a better day than yesterday. After the changes the team made to the rear of the bike it felt much easier to ride through the corners, more stable, and this prevented me from running wide like yesterday. I had fun and it was positive that I managed to improve my performance on a qualifying tyre. Tomorrow we start from eighth on the grid and even though that is not bad, I would have preferred to be on the second row. My objective is to get a good result for the team in their home Grand Prix.´

Alex de Angelis - Thirteenth

I´m not satisfied with this qualifying practice at all but there are positives as well as negatives. I managed to lap consistently fast on race tyres even though we´re struggling with the qualifiers. Unfortunately we´re still not getting the best out of them and as a consequence we can´t improve at the same rate as the other riders. I´m still confident though because in free practice I did some practice starts and I think I can get away well. I'll try to make up as many positions as I can after that but it won't be easy at this track.´