de Puniet beats the factories - again.

That is some going Randy! Bonne chance mon ami ;-)

Guess I was wrong about it prob. not being a qualifier...I must say, 12 - 14 laps is nice, but still only 1/2 distance

Randy makes Team green feel sorry that they didn't treat him with a little bit more respect. Shades of Stoner on the LCR? Except he hasn't dropped it yet and I really hope he won't either this year ;)

The Kawasaki might have to be "overridden" like the Ducati???

Final day tomorrow. New game, new chances to set a marker...

Very true Harry. I said something similar a couple of times.
I believe in Randy, the choice to use öhlins suspension and part of his own team
in combination with the fact that he has signed a two year deal with LCR will do him good,
it's almost like a wedding ;-)

Quite impressive to what extend the Showa/Öhlins change can affect the performance of a bike. I mean, suspension is a major part, but Showa is not a "beginner" either.

(Reminds me of the single tyre period between Bridge and Michelin.) In the future they might have ta add "suspension"

Its only testing. Remember Tamada was running quick times in testing last year, then look what happened. Nobody is pulling out the big guns and they're still doing laptimes around the 07 session.

Your right about that Jamaal, still early days.
Imagine being handd a prototype motorcycle that you run for the first time and then taking it to the limits...

harryx, your wrong he did crash it...

and funniest part about it was that he did it in his race simulation... lol how appropriate.

still its good to see him running fast tho

Darn, many have dropped it, but I didn't know he did so too. Sepang seems to be a greasy track since it was resurfaced last year.

He really emulates Stoner in perfection then. I wonder when we'll see the real Randy!!!

I can remember watching De-puniet a fair few years ago & thought he was possibly a goo bet for a 250cc championship, however much I like the guy let's get serious, he put's bikes down the road far too often to be a real threat.

I know he has the speed he always has had but lack's consistency apart from in testing and remember last year he put in some very good qualifying performances, I wish him all the best because he deserves it.

Even if he stopped binning it, he still wouldn't get anything like close to winning a world championship. OK he has a bit of speed but there are at least 8 riders on the grid who are faster than him, and that doesn't include any of the rookies. My prediction - lucky to finish in the top 10 at the end of 2008. Kawasaki are well shut, the Hopper will blow him away...

Good luck to Randy.

Many riders are fast during the summer and not deliver during the race season.

The grand poo bah of them all must be out of Colin Edwards and Carlos Checa.

Colin seemed to be "doing it easy" (his quote) when he finally got a Honda ride. that!

Checa was immediately quick on the Ducati.

Where are they now?

Wheres Col? hmmmm ahead of Rossi on a those crappy old Michelins, too funny.... not to mention Horhay pushing harder than expected so early on. I would love to be afly on the wall over at Yamaha

Don't flies hang around sh1t? - Oh you'll be going to the right place then with the Yamaha garage...lol

Marty I wish you were a fly on the wall too then I think 99% of people would have their tin of RAID aimed in your direction...

Go JT!

'watch me crash', how could he possibly crash during his race simulation and finish the 20 laps quicker than the 2007 race winner ? If what you post is true, then it's an amazing achievement : crash, bump restart the bike, and still be in race winning lap times! whoa!

Kevin S, it's Stoner who did only 12-14 laps, Randy did achieve the race simulation.

Apart from that, only sensible posts here... Sure Randy has speed, sure Honda seems to have cured the front-end woes of 2007, and the 2008 chassis is an improvement, sure Michelin is working days and nights to beat Rossi's Bridges and prove him wrong, sure LCR is a great team, and sure Ohlins know what they talk about...

Go for it now

Randy will do good and crash less, Honda build bikes that are easy to ride fast, Kawasaki build bikes that are hard to ride fast. ALL non honda rider generally go faster on a Honda, If Lunatic scored a Honda he would be a threat this year.
Oh yeah Randy is riding last years un altered bike, not as bad as every one thought.

LCR didn't have Ohlin technical support. All being done in-house by a crew which is moving to LCR with DePuniet from Kawasaki as suspension technician. They using suspension kits from used Ilmor's parts.

Randy seems very comfortable with Ohlin and thats would be a bonus since the other Hondas still having problem to get consistent. Since he is still crashing his bike, I think he need to work on that before the season started.

I think if Nakano got the same Ohlin forks on his RCV, he probably be as fast as Randy too and the B'stones tires will add an extra kicks to it.

100% of the groupies, no less! and I would be dissapointed ;)

Well Randy can hardly do much worse than Casey Stoner on that bike as far as the amount of DNF's in a season goes, was it seven?
I will be curious about his developments this season as he seems to have found his place there working with Checcinello
and the öhlins move seems to have been a real smart one ;-)