Rizla Suzuki MotoGP on the pace Stateside
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP racers John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen finished
in third and seventh places respectively on the first day
of practice for Sunday’s American Grand Prix.
Hopkins was one of the hardest working riders on the track
today as he completed 66 laps of the 3.6km Laguna Seca circuit
in California. He set his fastest time of 1’23.452 during
the afternoon session as track temperatures reached 58°C,
the American-born Suzuki star looked comfortable on his GSV-R
as he made his home debut on an 800cc MotoGP machine. Hopkins
worked all day to get the correct set-up for his bike and
search for the optimum combination of tyres for Sunday’s
32-lap race, and believes that the best is still to come from
him and the machine.
Vermeulen clocked a quickest time of 1’23.576 from
his 59 laps, just over a half-of-a-second behind the fastest
time set by championship leader Casey Stoner. Vermeulen suffered
with some arm-pump in the morning session, but worked hard
with his crew to find the set-up to overcome this later in
the day. He too spent much of the day searching the best tyre
pairing for Sunday’s race.
Today’s practice was held in warm, sunny, but breezy
conditions with air temperatures reaching 27°C.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will have one more practice session tomorrow
morning followed by an hour of qualifying in the afternoon.
Round 11 of the MotoGP World Championship gets underway at
14.00hrs local time (21.00GMT) on Sunday 22nd July.
John Hopkins:
“It feels good to be Stateside and it’s been
a pretty good day all round. The track owners and the asphalt
layers have done a great job this year and the track is a
lot better than it was the last time we were here. Some of
the bumps have gone and the surface isn’t breaking up
anywhere – so well done to them on that! Basically we
got pretty lucky coming into this weekend because the set-up
we had for the bike wasn’t too far off. The crew did
a great job to get it like that so we were able to start testing
tyres straight away. Everything seems pretty sweet right now,
I know there are a couple of places that I need to improve
my lines and we need to get a bit more consistency. We need
a couple more tenths and then we’ll be right there.
We’ll all be working hard to get that and I’m
sure that come tomorrow we’ll come out and qualify great!”
Chris Vermeulen:
“It’s great to be back here as it’s a circuit
I really enjoy. This morning with the cooler air temperatures
we had some problems with the brakes - as I couldn’t
keep the heat in them - but the guys worked very well on that
and sorted it all out. The bike set-up and the tyres from
Bridgestone are all working well, and it doesn’t seem
to matter what tyres we put in they all work as well as each
other! We will have to do some more tyre testing tomorrow
to see which ones will have the best durability for the race.
We made a lot of improvements today and if we can keep going
in that direction I think we can hopefully qualify up the
front tomorrow!”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“The conditions here at Laguna Seca have been a lot
more favourable than they were last year when the track started
to break up. It appears that the new surface is a lot better
and although it was a bit greasy in places early on it seems
to be suiting the new 800s well. John and Chris both did a
great job today and the their positions reflect the hard work
that they both put in.
“Both the guys have got quicker as the day progressed
and I am sure the improvements will continue tomorrow and
we will see Chris and John battling for high qualification
positions on Saturday afternoon, and hopefully for podiums
come race time!”
Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix Practice Classification:
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1’22.997: 2. Marco Melandri
(Honda) +0.180: 3. JOHN HOPKINS (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.455:
4. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +0.538: 5. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
+0.551: 7. CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.579:
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