Rizla Suzuki completed most of its full test programme and acquired a large amount of data from Monday’s test at the Brno circuit before rain brought the day’s proceedings to a premature end.
Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista were joined at the 5,403m Czech Republic track by Alstare Suzuki World Superbike rider Sylvain Guintoli, who was called up to provide cover for the test if Bautista was unable to participate following his huge crash in Saturday’s practice.
Capirossi and Bautista were able to test many new and revised parts for the Suzuki GSV-R including two new chassis, new Ohlins forks and updated engine management programmes. Guintoli was able to complete three runs to get some data for his riding style early in the morning. The talented Frenchman was then scheduled to do a longer test run in the afternoon, but the rain intervened and ruined any chance he had of assisting with further evaluation of the GSV-R.
Rizla Suzuki will now assess the information from the test and hopefully be able to make some important steps and decisive changes in-time for the next round of the season at Indianapolis in America on Sunday 29th August. Guintoli will next be in WSB action on his Suzuki GSX-R1000 at Nurburgring in Germany on Sunday 5th September.
Loris Capirossi:
“It was a very positive test and we managed to get a lot done. I was able to consistently improve on my qualifying time from Saturday, even with very old tyres, so that was a step in the right direction. We tried a new traction control which also seemed to work well and it will be interesting to see the data from that compared to the one we have been using. Unfortunately it rained in the afternoon as we would have liked a lot more time on the bike to understand more things for the future.”
Álvaro Bautista:
“The test was very short for me, because I felt a lot worse than I did on Sunday during the race. Today we wanted to do a full comparison of two different chassis and we were able to at least do that. I noticed an improvement in the exit of the corner with the new one, the bike had more stability. We still need to test it further and find out what the true potential is, but overall it was a good test and hopefully with what we found we can make a big difference.”
Sylvain Guintoli:
“Although I didn’t do too many laps I thoroughly enjoyed my short return to MotoGP. The plan was to test the bike early on to get some base data and then do longer runs later on. I managed about 15 minutes in the afternoon and my lap-times were coming down nicely, then it started to rain heavily and that was the end of the day for us. The bike felt very different to my normal Superbike, but I was quickly getting used to the different tyres and way of riding – it didn’t feel like I’d been away from MotoGP at all. It has been a good experience to get to know the MotoGP squad in case I am ever asked to test again. I must thank Francis Batta for letting me come here and Paul Denning for thinking of me and giving me the opportunity. I very much appreciate it and also I want to thank Suzuki for allowing this to happen. One thing I did learn today though was that Loris and Álvaro are quite a bit smaller than me and it was a tight squeeze to fit on the bike, but the engineers did say that if I came back again to test they would sort out a seat to fit me!”
