Japanese GP - Round 12 - MotoGP
Motegi - Saturday 17th September 2005 - Qualifying

Barros and Ukawa tenth and fifteenth in Motegi

It was a particularly tough qualifying session for the Camel Honda duo, who
despite having proved themselves to have a good race pace, also had a bit of
misfortune in the official practice for the Motegi GP. Alex Barros's engineers
actually found a small technical problem within the forks of the Brazilian's
bike, but only in the final practice session. Even though this meant Alex was
unable to get a perfect feel for the front end of his bike, at least the reason
has been found, and in tomorrow's 20-minute warm-up session, the team can make
some final adjustments. It was a small crash which broke Tohru Ukawa's rhythm
meanwhile, striking half-way through the session and forcing him to set a fast
lap on his reserve machine.

Sito Pons - Camel Honda

"These practices didn't quite go as I expected, given the pace Alex had showed
in the first minutes of testing at this track. I'm disappointed because I was
convinced we would be fighting for the front row. Instead we had a few little
problems which slowed us down. We hope to resolve this in tomorrow's warm-up so
that Alex can still do a good race. Even Tohru had a bit of bad luck, crashing
at a time when he was doing some great work with the team. The slide took a bit
of the shine off him in the decisive part of the session, but he's a character
and very consistent in the race, so I'm sure that he will fight to pick up
places after a less than favourable starting position."

Alex Barros - Camel Honda -  1'47.562 -  10th position 

"We have discovered that the forks I have been using all weekend had a small
internal defect which stopped us from making all the tests on the front end, o
better put, it made them useless, because anything we tested wouldn't have given
the right results. At least we know why now though, and we have changed it, so
tomorrow morning we will try some more modifications because it's vital to be
set up right for braking here, so you can take speed off quickly and overtake.
This has also slowed down the tyre tests, so we still haven't chosen the race
tyre from the two we have singled out, because I wasn't able to do a durability
test with one of them. We will listen to what Michelin say of course, and we
will try to make the most of tomorrow's twenty minute session."

Tohru Ukawa - Camel Honda -   1'48.194 -  15th position

"I lost the front and crashed during the free practice, and it's a shame because
I lost a bit of confidence when I really had to push hard. That's why my time
didn't improve too much. In any case, tomorrow I will get a good start and give
everything in the race. The tyres have made a good step forward this year, but I
think the times haven't been beaten by a lot because the track is much more
irregular and quite bumpy".