Rizla Suzuki continue their fantastic testing form with Vermeulen taking 4th position and Capirossi taking 5th in the first day of testing in Jerez. Both riders wanted more speed from their Suzuki GSV-R and it seems like they got what they asked for with Vermeulen posting a fastest time of 1’40.572 during his 70 laps, and using the information gained from the two previous tests this year he recorded a time over half-of-a-second quicker than his fastest lap during last year’s Grand Prix at Jerez. Loris Capirossi also had a good day as he recorded the sixth fastest time from his 64 laps.

Chris Vermeulen:

“It’s been good to come back to a track like Jerez because it is very different to Malaysia and Qatar where we have already tested this year. We didn’t come to the test here last year – like the other teams did – and for us to get mostly a dry day today was very important and it has proved that the new bike has definitely taken a step forward at all kinds of circuits. We’ve have been consistently fast more than we were last year and the bike feels a lot easier to ride. We had a good day today and tried a lot of parts and found a good base setting for this track. We still have a bit of work to do to catch the front guys – who did some very fast times today. My guys will look at today’s data and hopefully make the necessary improvements to make sure I can challenge for that new car in the afternoon!”

Loris Capirossi:

“It has been a positive day today and we spent a lot of time working on detailed settings. Stuart is a great Crew Chief and we tried so many things today to get the best feel, and I only used two sets of tyres all day to find the best settings for the bike on old tyres. We tried many things to find the best solution for tomorrow and I think that we are close and can concentrate just on lap-times tomorrow. I am happy with the progress and the bike is still as competitive as it was in the first test and we are pleased with where we are at the moment.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“Given that the weather was so bad when we arrived at the circuit this morning we have been very happy to have achieved as much work as we have and we are pleased to have run quite competitively with both riders. It has been a day of checking and confirming the changes and the developments that have been made at the other circuits, and whilst we weren’t quite as quick as we were at Sepang at the end of January, the potential still looks very promising. The gap to the front three riders doesn’t look so big on paper but at Jerez it’s quite a lot to find. We will be looking to get the most out of the bike overnight so that the riders have the confidence to move their own performance levels to the maximum tomorrow.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback