Nakano eyes half-second improvement

With his Konica Minolta Honda team being cautious with the number of tyres they used on Friday, Nakano admitted that he has not yet delivered all that he and his bike are capable of.

"I think I was riding okay this morning but we had a different tyre on this afternoon," he said.

"I made some changes to the front and rear suspension to get the bike to turn quicker and this made a big improvement, but the tyre I used in the afternoon wasn't as good as the one I had in the morning, so I'm looking forward to using these settings on a better tyre.

"These new rules are the same for everybody, but we decided to keep some tyres for Friday's practice and qualifying. I think we need around half a second or more from tomorrow, so I will be trying my best to find that time."

Giulio Bernardelle, the team's technical director, added: "I think we have lost half second at the moment from our test here in February, but this is not such a big problem. I think we should be able to go for a 1m57.1s or a 57.2s consistently tomorrow.

"Conditions are similar to February's test here, but with only 17 rear tyres we have to conserve some of these for tomorrow as well as Saturday's race. We will have two qualifying tyres for the final session so I think tomorrow we will understand where we are in comparison with our rivals."