San Carlo Honda Gresini use new forks for Friday sessions

Shinya Nakano and Alex de Angelis were adapting some new Showa forks to their Honda RC212V machines on Friday and, although their times were not quite what they had expected, the San Carlo Honda Gresini duo are in a better position to assess the direction to take with the new suspension.

Shinya Nakano - Eleventh

`Free practice took place in strange conditions today. In the morning it was wet and in the afternoon it was dry. In the wet the feeling with the bike was good and we found our pace in the dry pretty much straight away. We tried out a variety of tyres for the race, which the weather forecast is predicting will be dry. After modifying the setting during the afternoon the feeling improved and so did my confidence on the bike. Eleventh place doesn´t look good but I´m confident for tomorrow.´

Alex de Angelis - Eighteenth

`It has been really difficult for us because we´re testing a new suspension that Showa have brought for us to Motegi but the conditions haven´t really allowed us to test it out properly. This afternoon we had a few different set-up problems and at this track, which has a lot of braking areas, we haven´t managed to be fast or find the right direction to follow because the conditions were changing with every lap. Together with the technicians we´ll look at the data and try to understand whether we should continue in the same way tomorrow or take a step backwards and focus on developing this new material with patience.´