Plenty more to come from Rizla Suzuki MotoGP at Le Mans
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP racer John Hopkins was the fastest rider through
the turn one speed-trap, as he powered his Rizla Suzuki GSV-R
to fifth quickest during today’s free practice sessions
for Sunday’s French Grand Prix.
Hopkins (1’35.746, 50 laps) used the first day’s
practice to fine tune the handling of his Rizla Suzuki GSV-R
in readiness for this weekend’s race and is sure that
there is still more to come from both him and the bike. His
highest speed of 287.7 through the speed-trap shows that he
has the confidence in the GSV-R, as he powers into one of
the fastest corners on the MotoGP calendar.
Chris Vermeulen (P13, 1’36.491, 44 laps) also used
the day to make sure his bike was set-up for the stop-and-go
nature of the Le Mans circuit. He made improvements during
both sessions and is eager to get on with the job again tomorrow.
Although he was in 13th position he is only just over a second
from the fastest time of the day, set by Marco Melandri on
his Bridgestone-shod Honda.
Today’s practice sessions were held in overcast conditions
and the end of this afternoon’s period was affected
by a small rain shower. With more unsettled weather forecast
for the weekend, Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will want to make the
most of the final free practice session on Saturday morning,
before the important hour-long qualifying in the afternoon.
Sunday’s 28-lap race gets underway at 14.00hrs local
time (12.00hrs GMT).
John Hopkins:
“It’s definitely been a work day! We’ve
gone through a lot of things, trying to improve all the time.
The bike wasn’t set-up as well from the start as it
was in China, so we have had to work a bit to get the bike
how we need it to be. The whole crew have worked hard today
and we made big steps forward. We are still looking to make
things a bit better and I also have to work on my riding as
I have to get a couple of lines sorted. Hopefully we’ll
get a good night’s sleep and come out tomorrow and ride
as hard as we can!”
Chris Vermeulen:
“After the poor weather here this week we have been
quite lucky today to get almost a full dry day. The last 15
minutes of the second session was a bit wet, which was unfortunate
as we were progressing really well with the bike. We’ve
made pretty big steps and things are certainly heading in
the right direction. We still need to find that bit more,
but I’m sure that tomorrow we will get even better!”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“It’s been a day of sorting things out for both
the riders. Neither John nor Chris were completely happy with
the set-up from the start and both of them have worked hard
with their crews to get the Rizla Suzukis up to their –
now expected – competitive selves. We know we still
have a bit more to do, but we also know what is needed. The
whole field is again incredibly close so every tenth or even
hundredth of a second that we can find is really going to
be vital come tomorrow’s qualifying to make sure that
we are in the best grid positions possible for Sunday’s
race.”
Alice Grand Prix de France Free Practice Classification:
1. Marco Melandri (Honda) 1’35.319: 2. Dani Pedrosa
(Honda) +0.148: 3. Carlos Checa (Honda) +0.179: 4. Colin Edwards
+0.307: 5. JOHN HOPKINS (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.427: 13.
CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.172:
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