Hopkins fights through the pain barrier in Qatar
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP racer John Hopkins recorded the fourth fastest
time during today’s first practice day for the Qatar
Grand Prix at Losail.
Hopkins (P4, 1’56.972, 39 laps) was still suffering
the after effects from a heavy crash last month, but the gutsy
Anglo-American star overcame the pain to put in a solid day’s
performance and set himself up nicely for this weekend’s
MotoGP curtain raiser. He made maximum use of the latest generation
of Bridgestone race tyres, which the Japanese company has
brought to this race, by only using two rear tyres throughout
the whole day.
Chris Vermeulen (P12, 1’57.636, 43 laps) had a tough
morning as he and his crew worked hard to overcome a braking
setback. He lost quite a bit of time from the session but
was able to get back into the flow of things as the afternoon
progressed. He has a clear indication of which direction to
go in tomorrow and will be eager to move up the timesheets.
Today’s practice was held in warm and sunny conditions
at the 5.380km long Losail International Circuit. Track temperatures
reached 42°C, but air temperature was a pleasant 25°C
as the circuit was cooled by a strong wind. Valentino Rossi
set the fastest time on his factory Yamaha.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has one more practice session tomorrow
morning, followed by the hour-long qualifying session in the
afternoon. Saturday’s 22-lap race gets underway at 15.00hrs
local time (12.00hrs GMT).
John Hopkins:
“We’re pretty happy with today. The pain level
in my hand has been quite high so my pain threshold has had
to withstand that all day. I’ve been working hard with
the MotoGP clinic and my trainer Johnny Louch, and Team Physio
Dean Miller, have been doing a tremendous job getting me back
to fitness. Bridgestone has also done an exceptional job here
this week by bringing some really good tyres, they have stepped
it up massively from what we had here at the test. I think
this is the first time in my career that I have only used
two rear tyres in a whole day! I ran one for this morning
session and another for the whole of the afternoon and set
my fastest lap-time on the last lap in both cases. We still
have a couple more things to do to the bike tomorrow but we
will be ready for qualifying and I’ll be doing every
thing I can to bring the pain in my hand down. Then we’ll
be ready to go racing when Saturday comes!”
Chris Vermeulen:
“We were well prepared for this track this morning
as we were only here a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t
have a lot of things to test so the biggest issue was tyre
choice - now that we have a limited amount it’s important
to pick the right ones. In the morning I had a bit of a brake
issue on both bikes and it cost us a bit of time getting it
sorted. This afternoon we managed to get it all sorted and
I was able to get into more of a rhythm. We have found a good
direction with the bike and the tyres and we have some good
ideas of things to try tomorrow.”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“After such an intensive winter of testing it’s
great to be back in a competitive atmosphere and getting through
our work with a clear target in mind of a good result on Saturday.
John in particular has done especially well today, and has
only used two rear tyres all day. He set his fastest times
on the last laps of each session, so in terms of consistency
the possibility of improving our race pace seems very positive.
Chris used the same strategy as John today – by doing
lots of laps on one tyre. He is still looking for a bit more
pace but the crew know where he needs to go and I think Chris
has the ability to take that time jump when everything feels
right with the bike. The competition at the head of the field
– especially Valentino – looks extremely strong.
But everybody is getting closer lap-by-lap and we’ll
definitely be amongst the group challenging for a podium come
race day!”
Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar Day One Free Practice
Classification:
1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1’56.464: 2. Colin Edwards
(Yamaha) +0.201: 3. Casey Stoner (Ducati) +0.281: 4. JOHN
HOPKINS (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.508: 5. Carlos Checa (Honda)
+0.517: 12. CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.172:
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