From a press release issued by Pramac Honda:

Magny Cours – France
Private Tests
18/19 November 2003

Shinichi Itoh tests rain tyres on artificially wet track at Magny Cours.

Two days of testing in France came to an end today for official Pramac Honda Team test rider Shinichi Itoh. Two important days of tests in which about 50 Bridgestone rain tyres were tried out on the artificially sprayed track in France.

The modern Magny Cours facility proved to be absolutely perfect for this type of testing. The short 3.2 kilometre (about 2 mile) number 17 configuration of the circuit, sprayed abundantly by special jets, was chosen for the event.

The Pramac Honda Team and Bridgestone technicians intended to try out a lot of different rain materials that had not been subjected to in-depth testing during the season that has just come to a close. A number of different profiles and compounds were examined by an untiring Itoh, the talented test rider who just never stopped working.

Shinichi clocked up 85 laps yesterday and another 65 today. There are no lap records as the short part of the Magny Cours circuit has never been used, but really the aim was not to achieve the highest speeds but rather to get the most out of comparative tests between the various rain tyres.

Itoh raced with the Honda RC211V just as it had been used by Makoto Tamada in the last championship at Valencia. He declared he was very satisfied with the work that had been done in the two days of testing. And indeed large quantities of data and many references were gathered, and this will help Bridgestone continue its development work for the 2004 season.