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CAMEL YAMAHA SET UP IN ESTORIL Camel Yamaha Team racers Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards began preparations for the Grand Prix of Portugal with an intense day of work on the set-up of their YZR-M1 machines at Estoril today. Dust and dirt lifted by recent modifications at the track made for slippery conditions in the morning, whilst warmer temperatures than those normally experienced here in the afternoon tempted the teams into experimenting with their race setting and made it a challenging day at the office for the riders. Rossi was the fastest rider out of the blocks in the opening session, the Italian’s best time of 1’39.398 leaving him two tenths clear of nearest challenger Loris Capirossi (Ducati), with Edwards less than a second adrift of his team-mate. The American, working off data gathered by Rossi at the recent Motegi test, slashed his times in the afternoon, although the Italian found progress more difficult to come by as he tried a variety of different set-up options ahead of tomorrow’s final free practice and qualifying sessions. The fastest lap of the day was set by Australian rookie Casey Stoner (Honda) with a time of 1’38.218, just 0.050 seconds ahead of series leader Nicky Hayden (Honda). COLIN EDWARDS (6th – 1’38.779; 47 laps) “After we made such good progress at Motegi we just brought the same set-up here and pulled the bike off the truck this morning. However this track is quite different to Japan; there every corner is pretty much flat but here there are some banked turns, so we needed some time to understand how the setting from the Motegi test could translate and work for us here. Anyway we’ve definitely made progress throughout the day and we were much faster this afternoon than this morning, so we’re moving in the right direction. We need to sit down and talk about the next steps tonight, then with any luck we can come out fighting tomorrow morning with everything in place.” VALENTINO ROSSI (8th – 1’38.826; 43 laps) “Today we’ve tried several different things with our bike, trying to find the best compromise for the track. In the morning we immediately went well and we were fast from the start. Then this afternoon we weren’t able to find the perfect tyre, so we need to do quite a lot more work in this area. Then we lost a bit of time because we had a problem with our first bike and so needed to set the second bike up quickly and so we only had time for three more laps before the session finished. I saw that Nicky was very quick so it’s definitely going to be hard this weekend! Anyway despite these problems it’s been a good start to the day overall and I am quite pleased. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow but I think it’s going to be a good fight!” DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR “That was an interesting day to start off the weekend. Valentino started very well this morning and then in the afternoon we tried a different way with the setting of the bike. It was very interesting and helpful to compare the two sets of information and results – hopefully it will enable us to find the best setting tomorrow. Colin was also quite good today; we’re trying to use the good results from the Motegi test to help him find a comfortable setting here. It’s been a good day all round. Hopefully we can continue to make improvements with both Valentino and Colin tomorrow and make sure they are competitive for both the qualifying practice and the race.” Combined Free Practice Times: Casey Stoner (AUS) Honda LCR, 1’38.218
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