We changed the bike around, no major chassis/geometry changes like you would think, but just basic control adjustments like different bar positioning, foot-pegs, shorter and longer bar extensions etc. to help me get more comfortable and start to feel like I‘m part of the bike. I know that never in a million years is a grand prix bike going to be comfortable - and if you do start finding them comfortable then you're not riding fast enough - but there were things that could be done, and what had to be done, to help.
On Saturday I started getting a bit more feeling with the bike. For the last blast in qualifying I had a new front and rear tyre ready for one flying lap. It was my fastest lap but I admit that I didn’t make the most of what I had. The first two sectors were pretty good, but I messed up my complete lap in the third sector. I went a bit wide on the left hairpin before the series of fast right handers and at Qatar when you drift slightly off line it gets damn slick and costs a lot of time. I did a 2min 6.3secs, about 1.5 seconds off where I wanted to be. I felt like I could have got maybe 0.6 of that myself and then the rest would come from refinement of the bike.
For Sunday we came up with a couple of ideas overnight. We had enquired to Aprilia/Gilera about some longer footrests that they had specially made for Marco Simoncelli because he is reasonably tall (and I'm 3cm taller). First off they said that I might be able to have a set but then I think they changed their minds, or maybe didn’t have enough sets just in case Marco crashed. This would have been good to try but just before warm-up we decided to put on the standard handle bar mounts to try and get a bit more of a positive feedback from the front.
