Rossi and Edwards encounter second day problems at Donington

Camel Yamaha team-mates Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards will both start from the fourth row of the grid in tomorrow's British Grand Prix, after running into set-up problems during the second day of practice at Donington Park. Whilst Rossi continued to ride through the pain from the ankle and wrist injuries he sustained at Assen nine days ago, he also struggled to adapt his machine to the demands of the British track, where he has taken victory for five of the last six seasons.  Edwards was equally baffled by the lack of progress he made today after making positive initial steps yesterday. The base setting of the YZR-M1 machine has adapted swiftly to the fast and flowing nature of recent circuits such as Assen and Catalunya, but with only the morning warm-up remaining before tomorrow's 30-lap race the team still have plenty of room for improvement. A small consolation for Rossi was that Nicky Hayden (Honda), the current series leader, was also unable to challenge for a top grid position and will start in between the Yamaha pair on the fourth row in 11th spot. Colin Edwards (10th - 1'28.481; 30 laps) "The bike is really not working as well as we would like and to be perfectly honest we're not sure why. The things that worked so well last weekend don't seem to be having the same effect here and we're struggling to come up with an alternative at the moment. It's not for a lack of trying because my crew have worked really hard all day - we played about with the springs and the ride height but kept running down a blind alley. This is one of my favourite tracks and I'm used to turning up here and being in the top three from the first session - like I have for the past two years. In theory it should have been the same today but it's just not happening. Now we have to hope we can find something good in the morning, make a great start and just fight our way through!" Valentino Rossi (12th - 1'28.808; 28 laps) "We didn't expect to have so many problems here in Donington because last year our bike worked really well. It's a track where I've always been able to be really fast and go very well from the start, so it's quite disappointing. The situation with the wrist isn't so bad, but I've got some problems in the hard braking areas. For sure I can't ride how I would like to; we're not at the maximum. We've been quite confident because, since the new chassis in Le Mans, the bike has worked very well and been fast from the start, but here we can't find a good setting for some reason. Tomorrow we will try to find a way to make the situation a little better. Today with Dr Costa I decided to try with some painkillers, to understand better what we need to do for the race tomorrow. With these painkillers it seems I can ride more or less normally. Tomorrow me and my team will try to find the best possible setting to enable me to ride a good race and I will also do some more work with Dr Costa after warm-up in order to be in the best possible shape to ride." Davide Brivio - Camel Yamaha Team Director "It is a strange grid because nobody expects to see Colin, Valentino and Nicky all together on the fourth row. For sure the starting position will be the first problem for our riders to overcome tomorrow. I think with Colin has shown that he has the possibility to run a good race pace if we can just refine the setting a little more, and for Valentino we need to analyse things tonight and see if we can make it a little more comfortable - especially for his wrist. Today he was feeling stronger but he is clearly not at 100% yet so we will have to wait and see how he is tomorrow. But his problem is not just the injury - the bike setting is not where it should be yet and we are still unclear about the tyre choice for the race." The primary aim of the Tech 3 Yamaha Team is to improve at every outing and the solitary MotoGP qualifying session provided another encouraging result as Carlos Checa and James Ellison lowered their respective lap times in the battle for tomorrow's Gas British Grand Prix at the picturesque Donington Park circuit. Carlos's qualifying performance mirrored yesterday's practice sessions to be in 13th position, right behind world champion Valentino Rossi, as he spent the majority of the one-hour opportunity to concentrate on a race setup. Meanwhile, James who is keen to impress his legion of fans at his home Grand Prix, lowered his lap time from yesterday by a further second to be 16th on the grid. Carlos Checa (13th, 1'29.294, 31 laps) "We expected to do a little bit better but we are struggling at the end of the lap. We are very fast in the flowing part of the track - as fast as the leaders - so we still have a little work to do on the setup to get the Yamaha around the slower section as it is a combination of trying to get the bike to grip and steer at the slow part of the track so we will try something different for tomorrow. On the race tyres we are a lot closer than what our qualifying position indicates and we know that Dunlop are working very hard to improve the qualifying tyres so that we can get better grid positions. I'm confident that the changes we make over night will help in the area of the track we need to improve and this will assist in hopefully giving us a good result at the end of the race. After the last few races we know we have the consistency in the Dunlop tyres to race the distance and I think that some other riders on another brand of tyre will struggling to do 30 laps at the same pace in the heat. James Ellison (16th 1'30.382, 28 laps) "It hasn't been the best day for me after what has happened in recent weeks but I've taken two seconds off since yesterday morning and we are finding a pretty good setup on race tyres. We haven't finalised our setup but it has been gradually been getting better and better as front end feel is so important around here... I'm going quicker all the time I have made a good leap considering we haven't quite found that window but we're working on it. I'm one second off Carlos on race and qualifiers so that's encouraging because I know when we get that setup sorted I'll be right on him. This is also my home grand prix and I'm overwhelmed by the support I'm seeing around the track. I've spent a lot of time with the crowd this weekend and I've had nothing but loads of great support. They know I'm riding hard and trying 100% and that really means a lot to me. It's like playing football in front of a home crowd; you really want to do well, so I'm aiming to pay them back with a decent result. Herve Poncharal - Tech3 Yamaha Team Director "It was another quite good day today. The qualifying position is not as good as Assen but it is very close to the other Yamahas of Rossi and Edwards. We are not so bad on race tyres so it will be another interesting weekend. Of course, it is very important for James as it is his home Grand Prix and he wants to shine. It won't be easy but we know he will push hard all day and his lap times have improved considerably from when he took to the track yesterday morning. Our lap times to the fastest four or five are quite close on the Dunlop race tyres so if we can stay with some other factory bikes during the race we will learn even more in relation to them That is why we are here. Dunlop sent a lot of new stuff from Japan along with one of their senior engineers as this is an important race for them and an important time of the year. Everybody is already talking about next year and it is important for Dunlop to show what they can do, to show they are committed and to show where they want to go. But we will be aiming to improve our performances from today and continue to be more competitive in the race as we have proven in the last two races. We have shown that we are improving all the time in the performance of the entire package and we aim to keep that momentum going with a good result tomorrow.    Round: 9 - British Grand Prix Circuit: Donington Circuit Length: 4023 Lap Record: 1' 29.973 (Colin Edwards, 2004) Fastest Lap Ever: 1' 27.676 (Daniel Pedrosa, 2006) Date: 1 July 2006 Temp: 29ºC Session 1 :  Pos.  Rider  Manufacturer  Nat.  1st Qualifying 1  D. Pedrosa  Honda  ESP   1' 27.676   2  C. Vermeulen  Suzuki  AUS   1' 28.158   3  M. Melandri  Honda  ITA   1' 28.205   4  J. Hopkins  Suzuki  USA   1' 28.252   5  L. Capirossi  Ducati  ITA   1' 28.394   6  R. De Puniet  Kawasaki  FRA   1' 28.428   7  S. Nakano  Kawasaki  JPN   1' 28.431   8  C. Stoner  Honda  AUS   1' 28.447   9  K. Roberts  Team Roberts KR  USA   1' 28.473   10  C. Edwards  Yamaha  USA   1' 28.481   11  N. Hayden  Honda  USA   1' 28.509   12  V. Rossi  Yamaha  ITA   1' 28.808   13  C. Checa  Yamaha  ESP   1' 29.294   14  M. Tamada  Honda  JPN   1' 29.362   15  A. Hofmann  Ducati  GER   1' 29.479   16  J. Ellison  Yamaha  GBR   1' 30.382