Suzuki duo shun Jerez for Australia
Added on Friday, November 21st, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Suzuki will test in Australia rather than Jerez.
Rizla Suzuki’s testing programme for 2009 will gathered pace as Chris Vermeulen and Loris Capirossi pay a visit to Phillip Island, Australia to try out next season’s GSV-R.
Suzuki had an indifferent season in the 2008 MotoGP Championship, struggling to make any particular ground on the “big three” factory teams of Honda, Yamaha and Ducati despite some impressive results in Germany, the USA and the Czech Republic but the Japanese factory have been extremely active in the off-season, having just finished a wind-tunnel experiment in Hamamatsu.
Capirossi and Vermeulen will be visiting the 4,448m Australian circuit as part of a private test - along with Kawasaki’s MotoGP team - while the remainder of the MotoGP paddock will be at Jerez in Spain and the pair will be joined by Suzuki test Rider Nobuatsu Aoki for the three day test
“This will be a very important test for us as we will be able to see where we are at the moment for next year,” said Vermeulen. “Suzuki has been working really hard since the last test at Valencia and we will have lots of new parts to try out at Phillip Island.
“We have just done some wind tunnel testing in Japan and with the data we got there it will be interesting to see what the new aerodynamics will be like.”
Chris Vermeulen added; “It is good to be going to Phillip Island rather than Jerez, because I am sure the weather will be better and we’ll be able to get a lot more work done.
“This is only the second test since the single tyre rule was introduced so it will be interesting to see how the new compound we now have to use performs at a circuit that is always tough on tyres. We have had some problems at Phillip Island, but if we find something that works well there then it will almost certainly work even better at other tracks.”
