Riding the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP invited a select band of respected journalists
to ride its GSV-R800 straight after the last race of the 2007
season at Valencia in Spain.
Alan Cathcart was one of those lucky enough to get the chance
to ride one of both Vermeulen’s and Hopkins’s
bikes around the 4.005km Spanish circuit.
Cathcart is an experienced and esteemed worldwide journalist
and his views and reports on all types of motorcycles can
be read in over 25 publications around the globe.
Here is his report on the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R:
Suzuki had its most successful MotoGP season yet in 2007,
when the new XRG-0 variant of its pneumatic-valve 75-degree
V4-engined GSV-R became an established front-runner in the
800cc formula’s debut year, by combining performance
with reliability in making Suzuki the only manufacturer not
to suffer a single mechanical breakdown in a race all season.
At Le Mans in May, Chris Vermeulen scored the Japanese marque’s
first victory in six years of four-stroke Grand Prix racing,
and like teammate John Hopkins became a four-time visitor
to the MotoGP rostrum in 2007, when the Suzuki duo wound up
sixth and fourth respectively in the final points table, and
the Rizla Suzuki GP squad failed by just one point to tie
with HRC-backed factory Repsol Honda as runners-up in the
Teams championship. This was the year that Suzuki finally
became contenders for victory once again in GP racing’s
top category, for the first time since Kenny Roberts Jnr.
won the 500GP title for them back in 2000.
The chance to ride both riders’ Bridgestone-shod Suzukis
at Valencia the day after the final GP of the season, underlined
the big step forward that Suzuki had taken with the new GSV-R800
- a bike that was competitive straight out of the box, first
in winter testing and then when Hopkins finished fourth in
the first-ever 800cc MotoGP race at Qatar in March. Climbing
aboard the Suzuki later the same day after riding both its
Honda and Kawasaki rivals immediately revealed the big difference
in architecture between the three bikes, with the cramped,
minuscule, nervous-seeming Honda contrasting with the wider,
bulkier but lower Kawasaki and the taller, more upright but
actually more normal-seeming bright blue V4 Suzuki, which
by sport-bike standards didn’t feel so very different
to sit on from Max Biaggi’s factory GSX-R1000 Superbike
I’d been riding three months earlier.
That was especially the case with Chris Vermeulen’s
GSV-R800, because his and Max’s bikes share another
thing in common, and that’s a street-pattern gear-change
to contend with that’s pretty idiosyncratic by racing
standards. This is a feature that I normally don’t care
for on anything equipped with slick tyres - especially one
as grippy as the front Bridgestone, which soon encourages
you to max out turn speed and thus lean angle on a bike as
stable handling, easy steering and downright confidence inspiring
as the GSV-R800. I thought this one-down layout would be a
hindrance on something this fast and powerful, because I’d
have trouble getting my left toe under the lever while cranked
hard over to the left in order to shift up - either that,
or short-shift while still relatively upright, and lose valuable
drive and momentum out of a turn.
But Chris also doesn’t use the clutch at all, ever,
after punching the launch control button on the Suzuki’s
left handlebar to blast off the line at the start of a race
- so you must learn to just clamp your hand to that left clip-on,
and hold on tight till journey’s end. But once again
the Suzuki’s gear-change was the best of any of the
five bikes I rode at Valencia, so light and easy-shifting,
but also totally positive in the way that it worked faultlessly
shifting in either direction without using the clutch, with
no jerks or hiccups as on other bikes in previous years where
I’ve been told to forget about working that left-hand
lever once on the move. Even braking hard and shifting back
three gears in swift succession for Valencia’s third-gear
Turn One by stamping downwards on the lever didn’t faze
the system, the Mitsubishi electronics ensuring the ratios
went in smoothly and cleanly, while the Suzuki stayed stable
and planted under reverse torque load, without snaking around
on the overrun thanks to the control delivered by the Mitsubishi
ECU’s ICS variable idle speed system. And in the one
place where the street pattern gearshift might have been a
big problem, when you’re cranked over to the left for
a long time accelerating up and over the hill leading down
to the last turn, I found the new 800cc Suzuki engine still
hadn’t sacrificed any of the GSV-R’s traditional
muscular midrange, so I could short-shift from second to fourth
very quickly without losing any momentum or drive. I’m
a believer.
So, at the first chicane in the Valencia infield, I just
grasped the left handlebar firmly in my hand without worrying
about having to loosen my grip a little to work the clutch
as I back-shifted for the turn, which meant I could use maximum
leverage to lift the Suzuki up and over from one side to another,
while squeezing the brake lever hard on the exit to knock
off speed for the right-hand hairpin immediately after. From
being originally conceived to help two-stroke disbelievers
come to terms with that strange four-stroke phenomenon called
engine braking, thanks to enhanced electronics this has now
become a completely liberating function which allows you just
to focus on being in the right gear at the right time, and
to choose an optimum line while trail-braking into the turn
- with none of the distractions of having to work the clutch
lever and synchronise shifting, all at the same time. Look,
I was a sceptic, too, until I tried this amenity in the refined
form it’s now delivered, and while I can understand
those like John Hopkins who’d still rather work the
clutch lever to shift down, count me a convert. It makes riding
such a torquey, responsive, rorty-sounding bike like the GSV-R800
that much easier - and while I can’t pretend this is
the only reason I went six seconds faster on the Vermeulen
Suzuki at Valencia than I did on the Stoner Ducati which amassed
exactly twice as many points as it did in the final championship
table this season, it sure was a factor. OK - along with the
fact I got 2½ times more laps on the Suzy, so got better
dialled in to it, and in the middle of the day, too, not first
thing in the morning on a cold, slippery track. But, still,
my ten laps taught me that the Suzuki is a very fine motorcycle
- with or without the no-clutch option.
That’s because riding the GSV-R800 revealed a bike
that feels incredibly similar to its 990cc predecessor that
I rode at Valencia a year ago, both in chassis architecture
by the way it appears to be the same physical size and, most
surprisingly, in terms of engine performance, too. There’s
the same ultra-linear power delivery with a muscular pull
from as low as 8000 rpm out of the slow first gear Turn 2,
with the engine picking up revs very fast through to the moment
the bright orange shifter lights on the 2D dash start flashing
brightly at 16,800 rpm in the gears, albeit with quite a way
to go till the rev-limiter cuts in at 18,000 rpm - slightly
lower than I’d expected, with the 75-degree V4 engine’s
pneumatic valve operation. But that’s because while
spinning up so quickly the Suzuki has a strong yet fluid power
delivery, as smooth as an electric motor but more linear in
800cc form than any of its rivals, even the Ducati which has
a more layered just even stronger delivery of more power than
anything else. The pickup of the ride-by-wire throttle was
pretty fierce on Vermeulen’s bike, so you must make
sure you lift it up a little to get it on to the fat part
of the tyre if you don’t want to set the traction control
system too stiff an exam, but the Hopkins bike felt more controlled
in its throttle response, though just as muscular under acceleration
from anywhere above 10,000 rpm upwards. Really, you can feel
how Suzuki’s engineering team have focused on the way
that the power is delivered rather than outright numbers -
even if the ‘over 220 bhp at 17,500 rpm’ they
claim for the bike is actually the most of any of the five
factories do for their 800GP contenders! Anyway, it’s
all relative - peak power is only really important in delivering
top speed - the rest of the time what really matters is torque
and delivery, and here the Suzuki excels, even though it was
the slowest of the five factory bikes down the longest front
straight of the season in the fourth race at Shanghai. Here,
Hopkins was level-pegging with Rossi’s Yamaha on 325
kph, 7 kph and 6 kph respectively behind Pedrosa’s Honda
and de Puniet’s Kawasaki, and a massive 12 kph down
on the flying Stoner’s Ducati. Yet look at the end-of-season
points table, and it’s easy to see what really matters
most….
Both bikes still liked to wheelie quite a lot, but not as
much as the old 990 did - you soon realise neither Suzuki
has the /anti-wheelie control on the Mitsubishi ECU switched
on. Still, on the Hopkins bike you can use his more spacious
riding position to move your body back and forth in the seat
to help counter this - Vermeulen’s is a more close coupled
stance, though nothing like as cramped as the frankly flawed
Honda’s. Both Suzukis felt stable and secure on the
brakes, though, while acceptably planted in turns in the same
way their 990 predecessor had been. Really, it’s uncanny
how similar the two bikes are to one another, and I can’t
help feeling that Suzuki treated the final season of 990cc
MotoGP racing a year ago as a development exercise, even perhaps
so far as to run their 800cc bike in the 990cc category, perhaps
with the engine stroked a little to add a few extra cubes
and maybe round it up to 890cc or 920cc or so. Remember how
fast the GSV-R800 was immediately straight out of the box
when it started testing at Valencia a year ago? I reckon that
could well be what they did, and the way the Suzuki proved
competitive from the very start was the payoff. Loris Capirossi
looks likely to enjoy his 2008 season after all after his
parting from Ducati, on a bike that assuredly has lots of
potential - especially when they take full advantage of those
pneumatic valves and start revving it even harder in pursuit
of more power to go with the rideability that’s self-evidently
driven Suzuki’s development of the new bike thus far.
For where the Suzuki once again scores as it did a year ago
in 990cc guise is in turn speed, where a combination of the
weight transfer delivered under braking by a bike that’s
quite a bit taller than the Ducati, but not as stilt-like
as the Rossi Yamaha, plus Bridgestone’s great front
tyre, and the GSV-R’s sweet-steering chassis package,
all together encourage you to brake later and keep up momentum
in Valencia’s more sweeping turns. But just as a year
ago on the 990, the black Brembo radial brakes on the GSV-R800
once again felt a little soft compared to the other two bikes
I’d been riding that day fitted with the exact same
hardware. “It’s just the same as last year - we
both have the brakes set up like that deliberately,”
confirmed Chris Vermeulen. “My style is to do a lot
of trail braking into turns, and I don’t like the brakes
to be too fierce, because I like to brake while I’m
already leaned over in turns quite a bit. If it’s too
snappy, then it’s too easy to lose the front - so that’s
why I have it not so fierce.” And in Hopkins’s
case, as a reformed Formula Extreme Megabike star, he likes
to use more engine braking than other riders, so also doesn’t
need such all-action brakes in keeping the bike balanced in
turns.
Balance. That’s the keynote word for the GSV-R800 Suzuki
- it’s a balanced package which feels completely predictable
in the way it responds to rider input, both in terms of handling
and engine performance. OK, it’s not the fastest bike
out there in a straight line, but it’s certainly one
of the most manageable and effective, without the sense of
excessive use of electronics - as well as, for me, the most
enjoyable to ride, without at the same time being too lacking
in performance. It’s just that final nth% the bike needs
to become a regular contender for top honours - and Rizla
Suzuki team manager Paul Denning believes Suzuki’s engineers
are quite capable of bridging that final gap. “As the
smallest of the major race departments, Suzuki needs to build
momentum to compete with Honda and Yamaha, and beat them,”
he says. “Because of their resources, it tends to go
in cycles, and Suzuki is very much on the upswing right now.
The engineers have come up with a significant new technical
ingredient for 2008 which they believe will make the difference
between fourth place and first, in both races and championship
- Nobby (Aoki) rode next year’s bike at Sepang, and
lapped faster on it than our two regular riders on the current
machine, so it seems to be a definite step forward. We’re
very excited about what’s coming next, and we believe
this year’s bike provides an exceptional basis to move
forward from.”
Based on my ten laps of Valencia on the team’s two
2007 bikes, I’d have to agree with that.
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