Vermeulen shines through for Rizla Suzuki in the Arabian
night
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP racer Chris Vermeulen finished the first night’s
practice for this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix by making
a huge breakthrough with his Suzuki GSV-R, as he recorded
the ninth fastest time around the 5.3km Losail International
Circuit.
Vermeulen completed 43 laps during this evening’s two
practice sessions - the first-ever held at night using floodlights
– clocking a quickest time of 1’56.279. The Australian
star improved dramatically between the two sessions as he
took almost a second-and-a-half off his best time from earlier
in the evening. Vermeulen worked hard with his crew to solve
a persistent problem during the first session, and he now
believes that a significant improvement has been made that
will allow him to use the 2008 Suzuki GSV-R to its full potential.
Loris Capirossi – making his first appearance for Suzuki
at a Grand Prix event – also circulated the Losail circuit
43 times on his way to 11th place overall with a best time
of 1’56.922. Suzuki’s newest recruit knows that
there is more to come both from him and his machine and is
confident of a much improved position both in tomorrow’s
practice, qualifying and in Sunday’s race.
Tonight signalled the first time a MotoGP practice session
had been held at night as the riders prepared themselves for
Sunday’s race which will be the first-ever asphalt based
GP held under lights. The lower temperatures will certainly
have a part to play in proceedings as the track surface dropped
to 14ºC this evening. Reigning World Champion Casey Stoner
clocked the fastest time on his Bridgestone-shod Ducati.
Tomorrow evening will see Rizla Suzuki MotoGP have one more
practice session, before the all-important qualifying session
gets underway at 22.55hrs local time (19.55GMT). Sunday’s
race is the first of the 2008 season, and the 22-lap event
starts at 23.00hrs local time (20.00hrs GMT).
Chris Vermeulen:
“The first session of the 2008 season got off to quite
a bad start to be honest and we really struggled. We had a
big vibration problem that we have had a couple of times,
but I’ve really got to thank my guys as they worked
extremely hard between the sessions, and we think we have
solved it! The second session was a lot better and I knew
on my first lap out that we had made a big improvement - I
even rode round on the out-lap with a smile on my face! It
meant I could really start to work on getting the bike right
and test some of the new Bridgestone tyres that we had in
our allocation. We seem to have found a tyre that works well
already and tomorrow we will do a longer run on it and make
sure it is durable for the race.”
Loris Capirossi:
“I think we improved a little bit in the last session
and things seem to be getting better all the time. But I have
some things wrong with my lines around the track and I need
to work on that. There are still a few things we need to look
at and get sorted out on the bike, but I am sure we can go
better tomorrow – we now have a clear direction to follow
and I think we can take big steps forward.”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“It looks like we have finally unlocked some of the
potential of the 2008 GSV-R this evening. Chris in particular
made some fundamental improvements today that have helped
him achieve very respectable lap-times and move the performance
baseline considerably.
“Loris has also moved forward and we know we have a
huge amount of work to do tomorrow to get to the podium challenging
pace, but we have made significant steps towards that this
evening, and I hope we can continue in that direction tomorrow.”
Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar Day One Classification:
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1’55.442: Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
+0.011: 3. James Toseland (Yamaha) +0.370: 4. Colin Edwards
(Yamaha) +0.500: 5. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) +0.521: 9. CHRIS
VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.837: 11. LORIS CAPIROSSI
(RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.480:
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