2006 Australian Superbike Championship (YMF Loan) - Round Four - Queensland Raceway

Kawasaki Day 2 Report

Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano will head up the second row of the grid for tomorrow's 30-lap German Grand Prix, after overcoming the set-up problems that had plagued him throughout free practice to qualify his Ninja ZX-RR in fourth place during this afternoon's 60 minute timed session.

Having struggled all day yesterday to overcome rear traction problems on his Ninja ZX-RR, Nakano continued to chase a workable set-up during this morning's free practice session, with little success.

The 28-year-old Kawasaki rider was lucky to escape injury when he was highsided from his Ninja ZX-RR at the right-hand turn three halfway through the morning session.

Nakano's crew made significant changes to the rear suspension settings ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session and this, together with a switch to a different Bridgestone rear tyre, transformed the Japanese star's Ninja ZX-RR.

The Kawasaki pilot jumped to the top of the timesheet halfway through this afternoon's qualifying session, holding onto pole position until the final 15 minutes, when a hard charging Casey Stoner knocked him from the top spot.

Nakano retook pole with his next flying lap - bettering Max Biaggi's pole position record by half-a-second - but was knocked once again from the top spot with just three minutes left to run, this time by the man who will start tomorrow's race from pole position, Dani Pedrosa.

Fast laps by Nicky Hayden and Kenny Roberts in the dying moments saw Nakano eventually pushed off the front row and back to position four on tomorrow's starting grid.

Randy de Puniet also saw big improvements in the performance of his Ninja ZX-RR on race tyres after making changes to the rear suspension settings, but the 25-year-old was unable to get the best from his qualifying tyres this afternoon and, as a result, finished today's timed session down in thirteenth place and facing a fifth row start in tomorrow's race.

The 25-year-old Frenchman knows that he's made his job tomorrow a whole lot harder by not qualifying closer to the front of the grid, but remains confident that further fine-tuning of his race set-up during morning warm-up will still allow him to put in a strong performance for Kawasaki in tomorrow's 30-lap race.

Shinya Nakano: 4th - 1'22.273
"The struggle we had to find a good set-up yesterday continued this morning, but then we switched tyres and made some changes to the rear suspension settings ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session and the bike was transformed. It's still not 100 percent there, but I was up with the leaders on race tyres this afternoon, and I'm confident that some more fine-tuning during warm-up tomorrow will produce even more of an improvement. Sachsenring is a difficult circuit to pass at, so qualifying near the front of the grid is critical. We were aiming for the front two rows this afternoon, so I'm happy enough to be starting from fourth on the grid. I also have to say a special thanks to all the Kawasaki supporters at turn four, who were passionate in their support every time I came past on a fast lap. It was really motivating, and I reckon all that waving was worth an extra three tenths of a second each lap at least! I hope they will be as enthusiastic with their support during tomorrow's race, and that we can give them a result to really cheer about."

Randy de Puniet: 13th - 1'22.974
"Obviously I'm not so happy to only qualify down in 13th place for tomorrow's race, but I just didn't seem to be able to get the best from the qualifying tyres today. We made numerous changes to the bike during practice and qualifying, with positive results, and my confidence on race tyres has increased with every track session. I'm still missing some time through the first section of the track, so this is an area I will focus on during warm-up tomorrow. We will also try a few further small changes to the set-up of the bike during warm-up, but our biggest problem for the race tomorrow is the fact that I'll be starting from the fifth row of the grid and Sachsenring doesn't have so many obvious passing places. Despite this, I think that with a little luck it's still possible to secure a good result tomorrow, and that's exactly what I'll be aiming for."

Naoya Kaneko: Technical Manager
"We've made quite a few changes to the rear suspension settings of both riders' bikes and this, together with the increase in track temperature today, has had positive results in terms of the level of grip available. But we know that there are further improvements to be had. Shinya's performance on qualifying tyres this afternoon shows that our set-up is right when rear grip is there, but we still have a problem with rear traction on race tyres, so we will look at this again tomorrow during warm-up. Randy went well on race tyres this afternoon, but was unable to match Shinya's performance on qualifying tyres. This is down solely to experience; a qualifying tyre is difficult to get the best from on this circuit because of the long periods where the bike is banked over on part throttle, and this is Randy's first time here on the MotoGP bike."