San Carlo Honda Gresini rider Marco Simoncelli slips to seventh for Indy GP start – MotoGP news
San Carlo Honda Gresini rider Marco Simoncelli came seventh to start the 12th MotoGP round, the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix on August 28, 2011.
The race will be held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
On the other side, Italian’s teammate Hiroshi Aoyama scored 13th position on the grid for Indy GP. The Italian rider worked hard to claim a front row start in the race. Though he tried hard to improve his setup during the practice
sessions but could not improve his timings.
Meanwhile running in the qualifying practice session, he was able to slightly change his setup. Like many other riders, he also fought to keep his front end lively on the track. The tyre was low on grip and the left shoulder wore out fast.
Simoncelli said, “Obviously I was hoping to do better than this because things weren't going too badly or us in the first half of qualifying. I was optimistic because my pace on race tyres was good but when we put a new rear in to chase a faster lap time
the front was completely destroyed.”
After making some changes and getting a new rear slick, the front end feel died and shortly after couple of laps Super Sic was not able to push hard his RC212V.
After the qualifier practice session, the crew will be analysing the data and try to search a better way to reduce the front tyre wear out, which will help in the race length.
Simoncelli is still hopeful for the race day, as his race pace is good. Still he considers that a podium finish might be difficult and a win further hard. However, there are still chances of improving the race start.
The Italian’s teammate at Honda Gresini, Hiroshi Aoyama managed to slightly improve his pace but lacked a position upgrade.
Aoyama said, “My feeling was a little better today but not enough to make up positions. We start from near the back again and that presents its own problems but my race pace is not too bad so I am looking forward to tomorrow.”
The Japanese rider will be working hard from the start off behind Randy de Puniet and ahead of Valentino Rossi.
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