Randy de Puniet - Photo Credit: Pramac Racing
Pramac Racing riders Randy de Puniet and Loris Capirossi were both disappointed after qualifying 11th and 12th respectively in Malaysia. De Puniet was particularly impressive on Friday, ending the day in eighth place and was frustrated with the lack of progress made going into qualifying.
“I am a little disappointed because I was faster yesterday and today, despite several changes, we could not keep the same level. Compared to winter testing we are not too far away from the other riders and this is a good sign, but tomorrow will still be a complicated race. With the back of the bike I am quite comfortable, though now we will investigate further tomorrow something to help me during tomorrow's race. It will be tough, it’s hot, but we need another good result and we will give it all.”
De Puniet's track engineer Marco Rigamonti expects the early stages of tomorrow's race to be challenging but expects him to come through the field as the Grand Prix unfolds.
“We hoped to increase the lap times with the soft tyres, but as it has happened during winter testing, we cannot do the same step forward that the others do when switching tyres compound. However, the eleventh is not too bad and with the race pace we are not so bad. We will have to start good and remain with the group even though Randy is suffering at this moment in the hard braking points on this track and he will have to grit his teeth when all the riders will be together in the first laps.”
Like De Puniet, Capirossi made tweaks to his Ducati which didn't seem to yield any improvements, forcing the Italian to go back to square one.
“I am not happy today because we could be at least in the top ten. We tried a new solution because the track had deteriorated, but it did not go as hoped. So during the last attempt at the end we returned to this morning set-up and we were able to improve. Tomorrow we can have a good race because the race pace is good. Then everything will of course depend on the weather!”
