No-post protest

Alrite, I cave in. My no-post protest has just been concluded.

Woohoo
Boohoo
After the promising fifth place start at Mugello, ending up eleventh is just almost too painful to type. The start was heart-pumping, whizzing forward to 3rd (top podium position!) and then it just fizzled out. Slowly and steadily, Shinya inched backward from the rest of the riders. If I were a fanatic, I'd offer soothing it's okays and urge Shinya ever onward, to infinity and beyond! But I'm a fan, and so seeing as there's a fantastic start, no jump starts, no one holding out an elbow to shove him out of the way and Kawasaki headlining CONFIDENCE HIGH AS KAWASAKI HEAD FOR MUGELLO at their website there had to be some expectation huh.

I've been practicing my starts this weekend, and it seems to have done the trick; today I got my best start of the season to jump from fifth to third place by the first corner. But that's where the problems started. I just couldn't stay with the leading group, they simply drove past me on the straight and they were gone. The same was true with the second group; I could run with them through the corners, but they'd just disappear when we reached the straight. I had no problems with the bike today, the tyres worked well throughout the race and I was pushing as hard as possible. But we still ended up outside the top ten, after John Hopkins passed me on the very last lap. I knew he was coming, but there is little you can do to defend your position when it's so easy to pass our bike on the straight. We know we need to find more top-end power, and we know we need to improve the driveability of the Ninja ZX-RR, and I think this can be seen quite clearly from today's result."

- Shinya after Mugello meltdown

Source : Kawasaki-Eckl

Put some teh tarik in that fuel tank, and slap a steering wheel on the Ninja, Shinya 8B

The good thing that came out of Mugello is that Rossi is back, back with a bang of a race. And Stoner, the newbie who has been thumping Shinya did not finish this time.

1. Valentino Rossi ITA Camel Yamaha Team 42min 39.610 secs
2. Loris Capirossi ITA Ducati Marlboro Team 42min 40.185 secs
3. Nicky Hayden USA Repsol Honda Team 42min 40.345 secs
4. Dani Pedrosa SPA Repsol Honda Team 42min 41.617 secs
5. Sete Gibernau SPA Ducati Marlboro Team 42min 42.680 secs
6. Marco Melandri ITA Fortuna Honda 42min 51.403 secs
7. Toni Elias SPA Fortuna Honda 42min 58.609 secs
8. Kenny Roberts USA Team Roberts 42min 58.782 secs
9. Makoto Tamada JPN Konica Minolta Honda 42min 58.841 secs
10. John Hopkins USA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 42min 59.431 secs
11. Shinya Nakano JPN Kawasaki Racing Team 42min 59.473 secs
12. Colin Edwards USA Camel Yamaha Team 43min 10.288 secs
13. Randy de Puniet FRA Kawasaki Racing Team 43min 16.808 secs
14. Chris Vermulen AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 43min 21.322 secs
15. Carlos Checa SPA Tech 3 Yamaha 43min 35.866 secs
16. James Ellison GBR Tech 3 Yamaha 43min 52.997 secs
17. Jose Luis Cardoso SPA Pramac d'Antin MotoGP 42min 45.597 secs

DNF:
Casey Stoner AUS Honda LCR 14min 52.930 secs
Alex Hofmann GER Pramac d'Antin MotoGP 15min 13.323 secs

Source : crash.net

Coming up, Catalunya weekend!