Shinya Nakano took his KONICA MINOLTA Honda RC212V to a tough tenth place in today’s Spanish GP at Jerez. The 29-year-old Japanese rider’s confidence took a knock during warm-up with a harmless crash on the last lap of the morning session and this affected his performance at the start of the race. Starting from seventh on the grid, Shinya held that position before slipping back to 14th place as the race progressed. Like qualifying, the race was close and hard-fought with Nakano battling with the likes of Chris Vermeulen, Kenny Roberts Junior and Alex Barros.
Eventually after a race-long scrap Shinya’s confidence began to return and he overtook Barros on the last lap to claim tenth place – identical to his result in the first round at Qatar. The MotoGP season now sees a month’s break before the third round in Turkey, but KONICA MINOLTA Honda will stay on at Jerez for a day’s testing tomorrow.
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