MotoGP
Malaysian GP: Rizla Suzuki Friday notes
Rizla Suzuki completed a full day's practice at Sepang in Malaysia despite tricky conditions caused by the track surface and the weather. Chris Vermeulen (2'04.455, 38 laps) and John Hopkins (2'04.494, 32 laps) finished the day in eighth and ...
Published: Oct 20, 2007, 8:57 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Rizla Suzuki completed a full day's practice at Sepang in Malaysia despite tricky conditions caused by the track surface and the weather.
Chris Vermeulen (2'04.455, 38 laps) and John Hopkins (2'04.494, 32 laps) finished the day in eighth and ninth places respectively and both riders are confident that they will be able to improve on those times tomorrow. Team Test Rider Nobuatsu Aoki (2'05.234, 34 laps) was 15th overall on the early prototype version of the 2008 GSV-R that he was using here this weekend. Aoki's bike showed an impressive top speed today as he finished fourth overall in the speed-trap on the long start-finish straight at the Malaysian circuit.
The recently re-surfaced track at Sepang and intermittent showers made traction very difficult for long periods of both sessions and all three riders worked hard with Bridgestone to find the correct combination of tyres to suit the varying conditions. Vermeulen, Hopkins and Aoki will all be hoping for dry sessions tomorrow as the more rubber that is laid down from all the bikes' tyres will assist with grip and improve overall handling and rideability. Today's quickest time was set by Randy de Puniet on his Bridgestone-shod factory Kawasaki.
The Rizla Suzuki MotoGP racers will have one more free practice session on Saturday morning with the qualifying session in the afternoon. Sunday's race is round 17 on the MotoGP calendar and the 21-lap race gets underway at 15.00hrs local time (07.00hrsGMT).
Chris Vermeulen:
"It was a bit of a strange day here at Sepang, there was a new surface and it was quite slippery in the beginning, not just for me but for everyone. Bridgestone did a great job with the tyre selection and we found some compounds that worked in our allocation - they seemed to behave very well on this surface and have a good durability. This afternoon started wet and it was hard to find a dry line, but my team improved the bike a lot during the session and every time I went out it seemed better and more comfortable to ride. Every lap I felt like I was getting quicker as I got used to the new surface. Hopefully we can improve more tomorrow and move further up the order!"
John Hopkins:
"The track surface this morning was extremely bad, it was very slick and like glass out there. This afternoon with the wet weather we only really got half a session with a dry track, but once we got up to speed the surface was a lot better than this morning and as more rubber gets down on it it will just improve more. We went through some tyre testing and a bit of set-up, but we will be working hard tomorrow and hopefully it will stay dry and we will be a lot stronger. I am pretty positive that we will be able to improve on our position by a decent amount!"
Nobuatsu Aoki:
"We have brought the 2008 prototype here to race for the first time; the reason is to get the chassis set-up for race conditions. We have tested a lot in Japan but that is nothing like setting it up at a race weekend. Right now it is working pretty good and as you can see the top-speed is good because the engineers have been working hard on the aerodynamics of the bike, so that helps with the speed. We still have space to improve tomorrow and to try and race with Chris and John over the weekend is our target. We need to get some good settings for tomorrow and see where we can go from there."
Paul Denning -- Team Manager:
"It was a pretty average day at the office today for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP. No big dramas but nothing too exciting to shout about either. However, we know the potential of the GSV-R and our riders at this track and, despite the new surface, without question we didn't quite perform at our maximum today. Tomorrow we should have a better starting baseline for the bike in chassis setting and various other areas and I believe we can be a lot closer to the fastest times than we were today."
-credit: suzuki-racing.com
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Malaysian GP: Rizla Suzuki preview
Next article Malaysian GP: Honda LCR Friday notes
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
John Hopkins
Hopkins has hit "brick wall" with injury recovery
Other bike
Other bike
Hopkins has hit "brick wall" with injury recovery
Should the BTCC adopt a ‘showdown’ points system?
BTCC
BTCC
Should the BTCC adopt a ‘showdown’ points system?
World Superbike riders aiming for Silverstone gold
World Superbike
World Superbike
World Superbike riders aiming for Silverstone gold
Latest news
Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Phoenix II
3 h
Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix
Lando Norris faces anxious wait as F2 prepares to decide future of his racing team
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
6 h
Lando Norris faces anxious wait as F2 prepares to decide future of his racing team
NASCAR Cup Phoenix starting lineup: Blaney earns pole as Larson struggles
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Phoenix II
7 h
NASCAR Cup Phoenix starting lineup: Blaney earns pole as Larson struggles
Ryan Blaney kind of faces a must-win scenario this weekend at Phoenix
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Phoenix II
8 h
Ryan Blaney kind of faces a must-win scenario this weekend at Phoenix
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe