Nakagami ‘understanding’ pace worries at Brno test

Takaaki Nakagami says the post-Czech Republic race test at Brno has helped him close in on solutions to his pace woes he suffered with during the weekend as he switches focus to next week’s Austria MotoGP.

The premier class rookie struggled with his race pace throughout the Brno event to finish outside of the points in 17^th to see his run of poor results continue having failed to reach the points since Le Mans.

The Japanese rider ended the one-day Brno test 14^th on the final times with a best lap of 1m 56.222s and felt positive about his pace after uncovering the issues he sustained with the LCR Honda RC213V which caused him to be slower during the race weekend compared to the test earlier in the season.

“We needed to understand why we struggled so much this weekend because the previous test was quite good and the lap time was quite consistent,” Nakagami said. “We will check and double check the bike set-up because we have two bikes, so one bike as the previous bike and one as the race weekend bike.

“We just tried to double check after only a few laps but we are understanding it.”

Looking to put the disappointment of the Brno race weekend behind him, the MotoGP rookie is already focusing on fighting back next weekend in Austria which hosts the second part of the back-to-back races following the summer break.

“We tried at the previous test the set-up of the bike and the feeling was not so good,” he said. “But it is a little bit better than the race weekend bike.

“This I think is good for Austria because it is a little bit tricky and a special layout so we need to understand braking stability there and also a lot of wheelie. I don’t know as it is the first time so we will see on Friday.”