Demanding day for Rizla Suzuki at Jerez
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP had a tough first day at the Official IRTA Test
in Jerez Spain, but was left with a clear direction for improvements
as the day drew to a close.
Loris Capirossi (P11, 1’40.843, 64 laps) and Chris
Vermeulen (P15, 1’41.763, 79 laps) tested many different
settings on their new 2008 Rizla Suzuki GSV-Rs, as they tried
to find those extra fractions of a second to put them in a
more competitive position.
Both riders made definite breakthroughs later in the day
and now have a clear direction in the way to go to improve
on their lap-times tomorrow – weather permitting.
Today’s testing was held in dry, sunny but windy conditions
at the 4.4km Spanish circuit, with track temperatures reaching
26ºC. Nicky Hayden recorded the quickest time today on
his factory Honda.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has two more days testing at Jerez including
a timed 40-minute session tomorrow afternoon where the fastest
rider will win a brand new BMW car.
Loris Capirossi:
“It was not an easy day for us. We worked a lot on
setting up the bike and we found some good solutions at the
end of the day. We will continue to work on things tomorrow
and we are really hoping for good weather so we can continue
with what we have found today. We have some ideas to modify
the bike. It is harder than we expected here at the moment,
but we think we have a way to go to get out of this situation
as quick as possible.”
Chris Vermeulen
“As Loris says, it was a difficult day today with the
new bike. We were one of the only teams not to come here in
November and that showed. We’ve had some good points
out of the new bike and also some tricky areas, and we have
worked on those here. It seems that we are struggling most
on the edge grip, we can’t really get the grip we want
and then apply the power. We made some big steps this afternoon
and halved the gap from where we were this morning, now we
just need to find the other half on a race-tyre. Hopefully
tomorrow will be dry and the forecast is wrong so we can get
another day’s full testing in – because we really
need it!”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“There is no hiding the fact that it has been a difficult
and somewhat disappointing first day here at Jerez. Most of
our competitors spent three days here in November, but that
should really have only made a difference for the first hour
or so this morning. We expected to be competitive here and
that we would have made improvements on our 2007 pace –
which was quite competitive at this circuit last year. There
is no question that there is more potential in this GSV-R
than last season’s bike, but for now the guys have some
fundamental restrictions that are stopping them riding to
their full capability.
“The one very positive point, however, is that the
motivation and the spirit within the team is extremely upbeat
and that we have a very talented group of people that will
be applying themselves completely to taking big steps forward
over the next couple of days.”
IRTA Test Day One Classification:
1. Nicky Hayden (Honda) 1’39.200: 2. Randy de Puniet
(Honda) +0.244: 3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) +0.328: 4. Colin
Edwards (Yamaha) +0.429: 5. James Toseland (Yamaha) +0.478:
11. LORIS CAPIROSSI (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.643: 15. CHRIS
VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +2.563:
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