Rizla Suzuki MotoGP hoping for no Chinese puzzles
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP travels to Shanghai in China hoping that the
strong race performance at the last round in Turkey can develop
into podium results.
John Hopkins scored an exciting sixth place in Istanbul last
week and will certainly be looking to improve on that - and
last year’s fourth at Shanghai – when he takes
to the track for round four of the MotoGP World Championship
on Sunday 6th May.
Hopkins qualified on the front row of the grid at last season’s
race and will certainly be planning to emulate that this coming
weekend.
Team-mate Chris Vermeulen will be buoyed by the performance
of his 800cc Suzuki GSV-R in Turkey. He managed a creditable
11th place after being knocked off on the first lap, and also
recorded the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap,
as the new generation of Bridgestone tyres yet again proved
their consistency and performance over a race distance. Vermeulen
continued in good form at the one-day test at Istanbul on
the Monday after the race by setting the quickest time of
the day.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP comes to Shanghai with over twice the
amount of points that it had at the same stage of the season
last year, and both riders will be looking for good results
from their Bridgestone tyres over the 5.281km long circuit
to improve on those totals.
The Shanghai track features the longest straight on the MotoGP
calendar – at over a kilometre long – where last
year’s 990cc machines achieved speeds in excess of 340km/h
before having to brake hard for a first gear hairpin. This
is combined with a mixture of slow speed turns, sweeping curves,
different gradients and the longest, most technical hairpin
in the world of MotoGP.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP takes to the track on Friday 4th May
for two hour-long free practice sessions. Saturday will see
another hour’s worth of free practice in the morning
before the excitement of the afternoon’s qualifying
session gets underway. Sunday’s 22-lap race will begin
at 15.00hrs local time (07.00hrs GMT).
John Hopkins:
“I like the Shanghai circuit. It is pretty testing
and you have to be fast through some of the corners and hard
on the brakes, so that suits me. I led here in ’05 and
was on the front row and pushing for a podium last year so
I am pretty determined to go that one step better this year.
The bike is working really good and the tyres that Bridgestone
brought to Turkey were a huge step forward, let’s hope
we get more of the same in China and can get on the rostrum!”
Chris Vermeulen:
“I didn’t finish at Shanghai last year so I will
certainly want to do better than that! The bike and tyres
worked really well in Turkey and I am sure that will be the
case in China as well. I am really looking forward to this
race, the track is awesome and one that I enjoy riding at.
Let’s just hope we can get round without anyone knocking
me off!”
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