Top five openings positive for San Carlo Honda Gresini pair

The Cardion ab Grand Prix Ceske republiky started off on the right foot for Team San Carlo Honda Gresini, Shinya Nakano making his debut on the new Honda RC212V and lapping fourth fastest, just a fraction of a second ahead of his team-mate Alex De Angelis in fifth

Shinya Nakano – Second

`I´m happy with both free practice sessions today – this morning everything was new for me so I just focused on getting to know the bike, getting used to riding it and then in the afternoon the feeling improved a lot. Without knowing whether it will rain or stay dry tomorrow, we tried a lot of different solutions, changed the balance of the bike and fitted a variety of different tyres. I obviously found the new bike to be an improvement in a variety of areas – the engine is more powerful and responds better in acceleration and top speed. The feeling with the chassis is better as well so overall I´m happy with the new bike. We still have a lot of work to do because we have only had today to gather data.´

Alex de Angelis – Fifth

`Despite the crash today I´m happy with my performance, especially in second practice. This afternoon we went with the tyres that give me the best feeling and I managed to ride fast for the entire session. Despite this we still have a lot of hard work to get through because the surface is new and we need to gather plenty of data to help us improve further.´