Konica Minolta cautious about progress

Rider Shinya Nakano has struggled since joining the team at the start of the season, and has struggled to break into the top ten all year.

But he took ninth in second practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, within six tenths of a second of pacesetter and championship leader Casey Stoner.

"This afternoon's session was much better for us," said technical director Giulio Bernardelle.

"In the morning the temperature was quite low and I think the track conditions and grip levels were not so good, perhaps because of the overnight rain. This meant that Shinya's contact feeling with the bike was also not so good.

"In the afternoon things were much better. We could get a good lap time, but again we need to get some consistency to be able to do this for the full race distance. Finding a solution to this is our target for tomorrow.

"It's good for Shinya's motivation to be top ten and now we can start the qualifying day from a better situation than in recent races."

Nakano was also encouraged, but agreed that the team still had to make further progress before they could transfer that improvement to a race situation.

"We made some adjustments to the suspension settings for the afternoon session and got a much better feeling from the bike, but we still need one more big step to fight the other guys," he said.

"At Assen you need a good rhythm and consistency so we will make some adjustments for tomorrow to try and find that. I love the track: it's one of my favourites, so I'm looking for a good qualifying result for tomorrow and a decent finish in the race."