Nakagami talks crashes, new chassis, practice start spin

It's been an expensive Qatar MotoGP test for the LCR Honda team with both Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez falling on multiple occasions over the three days so far.

Nakagami explained that his Wednesday accident, at the start of the final test, occurred when he lost the front as the asymmetric tyre made the transition from the soft to medium compound.

"That crash was a bit strange because track grip is quite good but somehow with the medium compound - especially the front, which is asymmetric, a little bit tricky feeling. A bit complicated on the right side," he said.

"70% of the tyre is soft and the last 30% of the right side goes from the soft to the medium compound so it was a tricky feeling. Because where it changes from soft to medium, every time when I went past that angle I felt a warning.

"The crash at Turn 1 is exactly the same point where the compound changes. So after that we changed to the soft compound front and rear and it was a much better feeling. We cannot keep the medium compound which is a tricky tyre for me. I saw that also Bradl and Alex crashed today. Too many crashes in the last two days.

"But with the soft compound it's really difficult to keep the race distance, after 7-8 laps a big drop and a lot of graining on the right side. So it's really difficult to keep the same feeling and we adjust a lot of the bike balance. Anyway the tyre is a bit complicated for everyone.

"Then of course during the day we tried new items, new chassis is the first priority and it was really positive for me. Really interesting for me. We tried to back-to-back with the standard chassis and some areas are really good but we need to work also on the rear side, the swingarm side and we can test new items tomorrow. We can make a mix or combination [between the parts].

"Definitely we can go faster because the feeling on the bike is good. I felt much more comfortable on the bike compared to the last two days. So quite happy about that."

Nakagami, 13th quickest at the first test, was ranked tenth on the Wednesday timesheet.

"The good thing is that every new item is quite positive for me. It makes me more comfortable on the bike and I enjoy a lot every lap," he said. "But you cannot crash with the new items because the last day of the first test I had a crash on the new fairing and I destroyed everything. So I apologised to HRC. This time with the new chassis I cannot crash any more.

"Sometimes it's difficult to make the balance, sometimes push to find the limit but you cannot crash and destroy the new parts. A bit stress. Some areas I cannot push more than 90%. But this is testing and we need to develop the bike.

"I have to be calm because I've had two crashes, the first one completely destroyed the bike and today I crashed at Turn 1, it was a scary moment because quite high speed. But I'm okay and the bike also. Hopefully no more crashes!

"Alex also had many crashes, Lucio [Cecchinello] is smiling less, hopefully I can get a good result to make more happy!"

Another area that didn't look too impressive today was Nakagami's first practice start, which saw him forced to shut the throttle in a cloud of tyre smoke, a bizarre occurrence given the acceleration limit on a dry track should be down to controlling the wheelie not a lack of tyre grip.

"The reason is that at some circuits we are really close to the limit for fuel consumption and so it's good to test [such conditions for the practice start] by going slowly on the sighting lap, like less than 90km/h," Nakagami said.

"But it was a mistake because at night the temperature drops a lot and the tyres are getting [cold]. I realised after the start with a big spinning. I thought, 'big mistake, it's not the best to test in the night time!'"

The only Honda faster than Nakagami on Wednesday was new Repsol Honda signing Pol Espargaro, in fifth.

"I knew that Pol could adapt very soon to the Honda because his riding style is aggressive," Nakagami said. "Looks day by day that he is going faster. It's of course good to see, it means Honda's bike is pretty competitive.

"It's good to see Pol stay inside the top 10 and even top 5 which is a good sign. For me, I'm happy to see."

Team-mate Alex Marquez was 15th on day one of the final test.