Strong first day for Vermeulen and Rizla Suzuki MotoGP in
France
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP’s Australian star Chris Vermeulen had
a positive first day’s free practice, in readiness for
Sunday’s French Grand Prix at Le Mans.
Vermeulen (1’34.630, 55 laps) topped the time sheets
in both this morning’s and this afternoon’s sessions,
before finally recording the fifth fastest time of the day,
just 0.403 seconds behind the day’s best time set by
championship leader Dani Pedrosa.
Team-mate Loris Capirossi also topped the time sheets during
both sessions, as the Suzuki GSV-R showed its potential around
the 4,185m French circuit. Capirossi (P11, 1’35.256,
58 laps) couldn’t quite match Vermeulen’s performance
today, but will study the data this evening to help him improve
on his position tomorrow.
Today’s practices were held in dry but overcast conditions
and, with the forecast for heavy rain during part of this
weekend, the team must be ready for any conditions during
tomorrow morning’s final free practice session and the
afternoon’s qualifying, as they prepare for Sunday’s
28-lap race.
Chris Vermeulen:
“Le Mans is a special track for me after my first Grand
Prix win here last year. I have great memories and I’m
really looking forward to this weekend. I think we have got
the base settings about right, we progressed a lot in China
– despite our misfortune in the race – and we
learnt quite a bit about the GSV-R. The bike has worked really
well here from the beginning and although we made a few modifications
we are really pleased with where we are at the moment. We
tried a number of tyres from our allocation and things seem
to be quite positive on that side as well. I still think we
have some room for improvement tomorrow. We’ll try a
few more things and hopefully move up the order!”
Loris Capirossi:
“I struggled a bit too much with the bike today and
I never found a good set-up, but we have a good setting in
the team already because Chris went much better than me and
we will look at his data and see if it can help us tomorrow.
We still need to get some more control out of the bike and
we will try a couple of different things on Saturday. I am
quite happy with the performance of the tyres, so we just
need to sort out a couple of other things and I’m sure
we’ll be up with the front guys. We have to keep working
hard and I need to improve a lot in sections three and four
as I’m really slow through there, but I know what is
needed and I will be going for it tomorrow!”
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“The team has good memories of Le Mans after Chris’s
incredible win here last year in the wet, but today we were
grateful that the weather held off and we could continue to
improve the GSV-R in the dry conditions. Chris had a disappointing
Shanghai, but it clearly hasn’t affected him at all,
and this has been his most competitive Friday this year. He
has been consistently fast and has built up his level step-by-step
and he’ll be looking to move even closer to the podium
pace tomorrow.
“Loris is missing a bit of time through the middle
section of the track – compared to Chris – and
here a few tenths makes a huge difference to your position.
The guys will be studying the difference between the two riders
in those sections and Loris’s crew will be hoping to
find some improvements to help him take the next step.”
Alice Grand Prix de France Free Practice Classification:
1. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1’34.227: 2. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
+0.049: 3. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +0.060: 4. Jorge Lorenzo
(Yamaha) +0.260: 5. CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP)
+0.403: 11. LORIS CAPIROSSI (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.029:
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