Konica Minolta urge Nakano to improve

Nakano joined the team from Kawasaki for this season but has struggled all year to acclimatise to the 800cc Honda. He has yet to finish above 10th position, and is currently 16th in the championship.

Montiron said that while the team understood Nakano's problems, time was running out for him to impress and they would soon have to consider other options if he did not deliver better results.

"I think for Shinya now he needs to show an aggressive approach for the Estoril race," he said.

"We know Shinya has had difficulty adapting to his new 2007 package, but we are at the point in the season where we need to get some good results to continue in the current direction or perhaps look at a different overall strategy for the team.

"I hope at Estoril Shinya will be able to make a step forward and that we will have good weather so we can find a good setting for the machine."

The team manager added that it was particularly vital for Nakano to impress as the all-important Motegi race follows just a week after Estoril.

"It's important that we get a good result here as the next race is the Japanese Grand Prix, which is the home race of our rider, technical partner HRC and title sponsor Konica Minolta," Montiron said.

Nakano believes he has made progress with the bike recently and is optimistic that this will continue in Portugal.

"I've had some top ten finishes at Estoril so I'm hoping we can add another one to it this weekend," he said.

"I'm also hoping that we can continue to make some progress with the updated Honda RCV211V over the weekend."