Rizla Suzuki are having to facing a difficult truth very quickly this season – that they simply are not fast enough and need to find some radical changes very soon.

Loris Capirossi and Avlaro Bautista both finished well outside the top 10 once again this weekend, and week-in and week-out they are struggling to get the better of many of the lower placed satellite teams on the grid. Capirossi has been vocal in saying the he wants to stay in MotoGP for the return of 1000cc racing (currently due for 2012, but some speculation has suggested it may come into effect from 2011) but it’s hard to see him wanting any part of this at Suzuki.

Both riders and team manager, Paul Denning, talk about the Assen GP below:

Loris Capirossi:
“I just don’t know what to say after this weekend – when I try to go quicker than I did today I feel like I will crash and when I try to make a race I end up almost last. The effort we are putting in is a lot and I am really angry and annoyed, because the whole team is trying really hard, we make so many changes to try to find the best solution and we just cannot find it. We just had no feeling at the start today and we needed three or four laps to get any kind of feel in the tyres, but by then it was too late. It is the same to finish 11th or 13th, both positions feel the same and it is just not good enough, we need to make some big changes for next weekend so we can try to be more competitive.”

Álvaro Bautista:
“This has been a very bad race for us for a couple of reasons. Yesterday in qualifying it looked like we had improved the bike, but when I woke up this morning I felt more pain in my left arm. I think that yesterday I did too much and today my left arm was very tired and painful. This was a bad start for a race, but I tried to be positive and have a good race. From the first lap though it felt very difficult riding the bike, because it felt like the tyres were still not warm enough, so I tried to push and find my rhythm like in practice, but the bike just moved around much more than it did in practice – I don’t know why. I struggled a lot in the race and I just tried to do the best I could. I hope that the feeling is better for the next race because it is my home GP. I have a week to get some more strength in my arm and try to recover a bit more and hopefully get a better result in Barcelona.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“Things have been very difficult this season and they didn’t get any easier today! Álvaro’s potential is unclear, based on the fact that his injury restricted him so much again today. We hope that the layout of the Barcelona track will be a bit kinder to his body and allow him to push harder. I want to say sorry to Loris and Álvaro that we couldn’t give them a competitive machine today, Loris especially is incredibly frustrated and that frustration is shared by all of us. We have to keep working hard and keep focused to find the key that will allow the riders to perform to the best of their abilities.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback