17/08/2008: Brno, Sunday
Another finish for Doni after a good race

Indonesian power at Brno

After most of the GP under rain conditions, this morning it was a sunny day in Brno and both the Warm Up and the race took place in dry conditions.
Doni was setting up his bike during the Warm Up for the race and he did many laps, because the setting of his 250 YAMAHA was almost perfect in the beginning. Even with sunny weather, the temperature was not so high during the race, when it was at 22º and the team changed some parts of the bike.
Doni did a good start, but he couldn´t improve his grid position after the first corner and started to ride in 2,07 soon, keeping a rythm of 2,06 during four laps, which let him go past the Kit Honda of rider Toni Wirsing, who was racing this GP last year and is more experienced than Doni.
After lap 7, Doni started to ride in 2,07 again until the end of the race, increasing the gap to Wirsing by 1 second per lap.
Finally Dony was 19th with a 15 second gap.
The bike was good all the race, except for the begining, when Doni had a small problem with the shifter, but after 2 laps everything was perfect.

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16/08/2008: Brno, Saturday
22nd position at the end of QP2 for Doni Tata Pradita

Choosing tyres with Dunlop

This morning was a good chance for Doni to get some experience and he did it. The conditions were wet in the begining of the practice and lap by lap the racing linewas drying up, so after many laps, Doni and the team decided to change to slicks for finishing the session. It was bad luck for us that few laps after, a light rain started again and the track was really slippery and dangerous. In these conditions, Doni needs more experience but at the end he could finish 19th.
In the qualifying, the track was completely wet and it was raining, but not as heavy as yesterday.
Doni did improve his QP1 lap time by more than 2,5 seconds and this is a good point, but all the other riders did the same, so he couldn't keep his fantastic position from yesterday on the grid.
Anyway, the race is tomorrow and Doni is ready to fight. The bike is going really well and the team did solve all the engine problems, so we hope we can do a good race in Brno.

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15/08/2008: Brno, Friday
Doni got to 14th position in QP1

Doni's bike after the rain

After the summer break here we are again in Brno, for the Czech Republic GP.
In fact Brno is not a new track for Doni, because we've been here testing in july, so we have a big part of the work done and a lot of useful setting information that we will surely use this weekend.
We have some new parts in our bikes after part of the team has been working during the break to improve our 250 Yamahas is Sepp´s workshop.
This morning during the free practice, Doni had some engine problems but even with them he was able to ride in 2.07, which was his best lap time during the private test last july.
He finished 22nd with a lap of 2.07,581, riding very well.
In the afternoon, just 5 minutes before QP1, very light rain started falling and Doni didn´t complete the first lap, because he was riding his Yamaha on slicks. So we changed the bike setting for rain and Doni started to improve lap by lap, getting a fantastic 14th. position at the end of the qualifying.

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13/07/2008: Sachsenring, Sunday
19th position for Doni in the german rain

This morning we arrived at Sachsenring and it was raining lightly, so we smiled during the Warm Up, when Doni was riding comfortably, getting a better and better feeling for the bike and the circuit grip. He finished 15th after a very good and positive practice.
Between the Warm Up and the race, the rain stopped and the 125 race took place in almost dry conditions, but when the 250 grid was forming, we changed the dry setting on our bike because it would certainly be a wet race.
The problem was to decide between 2 different rear rain tyres. We have one for light rain and one for heavy rain and after checking the sky, we decided to use the light one. It was a lottery and today we didn´t win, because after 10 race laps it started raining heavily.
Also Doni did a very bad start today, so considering all these things, 19th position is not bad at all.

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12/07/2008: Sachsenring, Saturday
Doni keeps the good working line

This morning during FP2, Doni did continue his progression with a new working system, because he was using his two 250 Yamahas. In bike number 1, he tested a new engine and after some adjustments by the team staff, he felt the differences comparing with bike 2, mostly in acceleration. The worst point of bike 1 was the handling, so Doni and the team decided to change something in the front of the bike for QP2. Even with those problems in the front, Doni did improve his lap times, finishing in 22nd postion, doing many 27s laps.
In qualifying, he had some problems with the rear shock, so the team decided to test a new rear Dunlop, but in fact this was not the cause of the problem. They modified the rear shock and the problem was almost solved.
Ten minutes to go, we fit a soft tyre in Doni´s bike, but then Doni was really out of luck, when he found himself among many riders and two of them also crashed during the last lap just in front of him. He finished 23rd. Both rider and bike are ready for tomorrow's race.

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11/07/2008: Sachsenring, Friday
Good start for Doni at the German GP

Another GP for Doni and again another new circuit for him.
During the morning FP1, Doni has been learning Sachsenring and he did a very good job, finishing 23rd with 4 riders behind him and getting a very good consistency in his lap times.
He must improve his riding on this short track and use all of the circuit for going faster, but Doni knows how to do that and we are sure that he will tomorrow.
In QP1, Doni started repeating his best morning lap times very early on, showing all of us that he is very close to making the quality step that everybody is waiting for.
He also finished in the 23rd position during the qualifying, but improving his morning lap time by more than 1 second at the end of the practice, when he had a problem with a broken exhaust valve cable.

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28/06/2008: Assen TT, Saturday
Doni's first fighting race

Warm Up positions after 1 lap

This morning during the wet conditions warm up, Doni showed his real potential to everybody. Doni´s smooth riding style let him reach a final 14th position and also ride with very experienced riders. So everybody in the Team was praying for rain and it was really close to happen.
The MotoGP organization delayed the start when suddenly a few raindrops started falling. Still we decided to keep Doni’s bike on slicks and we were right.
Doni did a good start, passing 2 riders and then started his fight with Gomez and Toth who couldn´t follow Doni and finished behind him. This was the first „fighting“ race for Doni and we hope it won't be the last one.

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27/06/2008: Assen TT, Friday
Doni well inside the qualification time

Tyres ready for qualifying

Even with Doni´s lap time improvement, compared to yesterday´s QP1, we felt that it was not enough because all of us were really convinced that he could score a 1,44 lap this afternoon.
The team planned to use a soft Dunlop tyre on the 250 Yamaha for the last 10 minutes of this qualifying, but due to the strong wind and the traffic in the last laps, Doni coudn´t reach his goal. The positive thing is, that he got more experience during this typical MotoGP qualifying practice and he was riding behind very experienced riders during the last minutes.
Tomorrow will be another day and we hope Doni can fight with some riders and finish another GP.


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26/06/2008: Assen TT, Thursday
22nd position for Doni at Assen TT QP1

It has been a good qualifying session for Doni Pradita, who has been learning a new track during the morning, like he's been doing most of this GP season.
During FP1, Doni had some problems with his Yamaha setting regarding the gear ratio. The Team staff modified it for QP 1, but in the end, it was not solved at all so they will try some changes for tomorrow morning. Today's positive side is Doni´s progression. He is adapting well to Assen and tomorrow we all hope for a real improvement.


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22/06/2008: Donington Park, Sunday
Another finish for Doni in a difficult conditions race

May be the result is not so impressive, but in fact, Doni got a good experience during the British GP, this weekend. This will be very good for his future as a GP rider.
Today, like yesterday´s weather forecast adviced us, we had a very strong wind which made it really difficult to ride for Doni.
He got a very good start, but in the first corner, he was passed by 2 riders and he couldn't keep up with them.
Doni was trying hard to reach them, but the wind didn´t help so much.
He finished 19th, scoring a 1,38.527 as his best race lap.

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