Originally published by Julian Ryder on Friday, September 22, 2006
| There is a distinct feeling, though, that none of this matters… |
Day one at Motegi looked a lot like last year: Loris Capirossi, his Ducati and its Bridgestone tires put together more fast laps than anyone else and afterwards Loris called the riders who put qualifiers on chickens; actually he said “cheekeens” but we knew what he meant.
Of the championship contenders, Rossi looked fastest for longest but his best time looked to be on a q-tyre. Nicky Hayden continues to have problems with his bike but the appearance of a coil-spring clutch with extra cooling ducts will hopefully stop him getting his clutch worries out of proportion. Dani Pedrosa has more problems and reverted to his early season form of being unobtrusively slow on Friday.
There is a distinct feeling, though, that none of this matters because the back end of a typhoon is due to make itself felt on Sunday so there is a high probability of a wet race.
