Konica Minolta hope to maintain form

The Japanese rider has had an extremely disappointing season - failing to finish above 10th place - but showed better form in Phillip Island qualifying, where he took eighth.

While team manager Gianluca Montiron was pleased to see his bike back in the top ten, he remained cautious about Nakano's chances of maintaining that form in race conditions.

"Today was one of the best qualifying sessions of the season for us," said Montiron. "When you look at the times, you will see that the gap between pole position and us is quite consistent to what we've seen before, but eighth place is an improvement from many of our previous grid positions.

"I still think that tomorrow will be a difficult race as I think we haven't yet got a good race rhythm, so while Shinya is able to push for one lap in qualifying we need to improve things further so he can stay with the second group and have a consistent race - that's how you get a good race result.

"Shinya's qualifying laps on soft rubber today were good, despite having some other traffic in the way. Let's hope for a good start and consistent weather for tomorrow's race."

Technical director Gianluca Bernardelle felt that traffic cost Nakano an opportunity to take a season-best position in the top six.

"Shinya had a little trouble with traffic when two riders were in the way, so maybe we had the potential for a second row start position," he said.

"The important thing is that our setting has improved but we have to think carefully for our race tyre choice as today conditions were still cold, but warmer than yesterday at a little over 25 degrees. If it gets warmer tomorrow, we may have to look at our tyre choices again.

"We improved the balance of the machine for Shinya today to help him in the first part of the corner and also on the engine braking control which has helped Shinya improve his time."

Nakano added that he was relieved to rediscover some qualifying form.

"I am happy with that." he said. "Once more it's very close, but it's also very good to be inside the top ten in qualifying again.

"We've not decided on the race tyre yet - we shall see what the weather has in store for us tomorrow - but our suspension settings have improved a lot.

"Tomorrow I would prefer dry or wet conditions - not in between or us changing bikes, as that makes the race a gamble. I'm ready for both conditions and will hope for a good start."