Rizla Suzuki ready for Catalan challenge

08/06/2009 14:38pm

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP is in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona for the next round of the MotoGP World Championship, with high hopes of good results at the Montmelo circuit.

Chris Vermeulen finished seventh at the 4,727m track last season, a result that didn't reflect his excellent practice performance that saw him up with the front-runners all weekend on race tyres. He was hampered in the race when he was hit by Alex De Angelis early on and relegated to 13th place. He rode a strong race and was soon inside the top-10, before eventually coming home in seventh.

Loris Capirossi had a race to forget at Catalunya last year, as he too was involved in an incident with De Angelis, causing Suzuki's Italian racer to crash heavily and injure his hand. Capirossi is determined to continue with the good form he demonstrated at Mugello last time out, as both he and Vermeulen aim for competitive results.

The Circuit de Catalunya is one of the most modern and safe tracks on the MotoGP calendar. It is situated In Granollers, about an hour's drive from the city centre of Barcelona. The layout features a kilometre long straight where speeds in excess of 300kp/h will be achieved, plus many elevation changes, super-fast right-hand turns and two spectacular downhill corners at the end of the lap. All this adds to an amazing atmosphere from the huge crowds to help to make this one of the best events of the year,

Rizla Suzuki will have one practice session on Friday afternoon, followed by another on Saturday morning. An hour of qualifying on Saturday afternoon will decide grid positions for Sunday's 25-lap race.

Chris Vermeulen:

"The Catalunya circuit is one I really enjoy and we have performed quite well there. I would have done better last year but I didn't get a good run on qualifiers, so without those this year I hope my starting place will reflect my race-pace in practice - something it didn't do last year. The Barcelona race is a bit like a home GP for me as well because I have a place in Andorra so it's just a short journey down to the event and lots of friends and neighbours come down to support me. We are hoping that the upgrades from Suzuki this weekend will work as well on the bike as they have in the factory, we're not sure if we'll use them in the race or hang on for the test day, we'll just have to wait and see."

Loris Capirossi:

"I didn't have a good time at Catalunya last year after I was hit by another rider and crashed with some nasty injuries. I am determined to put that behind me this year and carry on from where we left off at Mugello. We know we will have to work hard on the long straight at Barcelona, but we learnt a lot from the last race and hopefully that will help us this weekend. We have got some new parts coming from Japan which should make a difference to the performance of the GSV-R so we are all quite excited about that."

Source: http://www.rizla-suzuki-motogp.co.uk/news/...08144236_SUZUKI

Suzuki pair review day one in Barcelona

Friday, 12 June 2009

The Rizla Suzuki perspective on matters at the end of Friday practice at the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya.

Chris Vermeulen was unable to join his Rizla Suzuki colleague Loris Capirossi in the MotoGP free practice 1 top ten at Montmeló on Friday.

Loris Capirossi – 7th

"It has been an interesting practice for us because we tried many different settings and found quite a lot of things out. At the end of the session I tried the engine with the new specification and it seemed to be a bit of an improvement on what we are using at the moment, but we have to check the data because it makes the bike perform a bit differently. Overall it has been a good session, but we still need to work a bit more on the set-up to get it perfect for here. The engine does seem to be an improvement and I want to thank Suzuki for all the hard work, because for us this is very important!"

Chris Vermeulen – 13th

"It's been good to get a full session in sunny and warm conditions. I went out with the hard front and the softer of the two rears - which I kept in for the whole session. I tried some different chassis set-ups between both of my bikes and we have certainly got a good direction. At the end - with more than race distance on the tyres - I did my fastest laps and moved up the order. The bike has felt reasonably good all day, but like I said we now have a direction to follow and we are sure that will help with both rear grip and durability of the tyres, because with such high temperatures that will be important this weekend. Hopefully we still have a long way to go and I am sure we will be making big steps tomorrow."

Source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2009/Suzuki+...ne+in+Barcelona

Suzuki duo with catching up to do

Saturday, 13 June 2009

Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen will have to race aggressively for the Rizla Suzuki team on Sunday at Barcelona having qualified outside the top ten.

Italian veteran Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen respectively qualified 1.391s and 1.411s off the pace at the Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday afternoon and were feeling the heat at the end of the day.

Loris Capirossi – 11th

"It has been pretty hard today. We tried a different setting this morning and although we improved a little bit it wasn't enough to put us in a good position for tomorrow. My impression is that our race pace is better than our qualifying and it was difficult for us to go much quicker on the softer tyres than we did on the harder compound. We will have to see what happens tomorrow, but the bike is working quite well and we have a good rhythm. The race tyre is working well so we are optimistic, but we are starting a little bit back so this will make it hard. We know we can do well off the line and have a good race."

Chris Vermeulen – 12th

"It has been really difficult today with the hot track temperatures and the limited amount of hard front tyres that we have. We did all of qualifying on the same front tyre and I did 27-laps so it was not ideal to try to do a faster lap on it at the end. We struggled a bit with grip and that's what we are going to have to concentrate on tomorrow to get a good life out of the tyres. The guys did a good job on the bike, we made a big step forward with the chassis and I feel a lot more comfortable on it than I did yesterday."

Source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2009/Suzuki+...tching+up+to+do