Strides made by Suzuki duo

Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista of the Rizla Suzuki team left the Qatar Test with encouraging assessments ahead of the start of the new season.

The work completed by the Rizla Suzuki team at the final pre-season MotoGP Test at Losail made for a happy evaluation from both riders, as Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista gave encouraging feedback on their experiences of the GSV-R prototype.

The vastly experienced Capirossi did a thorough evaluation of the new spec higher durability GSV-R engine, as well as testing a new chassis, swingarm and various other new specification parts. After his first evening’s work was cut short due to illness the Italian was back out on track on Friday night for session two, and he was pleased with the progress his 2010 bike has made ahead of the new campaign.

“Overall I’m quite happy and we did quite a good job today, because yesterday I was a little bit sick and I didn’t do many laps,” explained Capirossi, who ended the Test sixth fastest overall with a best time of 1’56.195. “Today I was nearly 100% and able to try many things on the bike. It is easy to see that we have improved here compared to last year. On the long run at the end I was not too happy because it was not so good, but the conditions were quite bad by then so I don’t really care about that. The track got very humid and I didn’t want to push too hard and risk crashing. In three weeks we are here again and I didn’t want to be injured for that.”

Looking ahead to the start of the season at the same circuit on April 11th, Capirossi said: “We hope that we will have a great opportunity this season because everyone is working really hard. I am so happy to still be with Rizla Suzuki and overall – although we know we still need to improve a little bit – we have done a good job so far this year.”

Capirossi’s rookie team-mate Bautista made further advances to his baptism into the premier class, and the Spaniard stepped up a level across the two evening sessions as he knocked over a second off his time.

“I’m happy because I went faster than yesterday by more than one second,” said Bautista at the conclusion of the Test. “Overall we’ve been trying some different solutions for geometry and suspension – rear and front – and I’m happy because we have some data. I think we have a good base for the race here. We have a very important reference now and I’m happy with these two days of testing. I am improving every time and I now know I am ready to race!”