Team Suzuki Press Office – July 16.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR has completed two days of intense testing at Misano in Italy today with positive results and crucial data aquired in the intense heat that reached 56°C on track.
Aleix Espargarò and Maverick Viñales continued the development of their Suzuki GSX-RRs and their engineers had the chance to verify all the information collected to date, and along with the progress made so far, it is going in the right direction, they believe.
At the same time both Spaniards tried new settngs and set-ups that will be put into action at future races this season; in particular Misano in September. The chassis set-up and electronics are the two main areas on which the team focused; trying several variations aimed at providing better traction and a better power delivery.
The other important job done by Espargarò and Viñales was to prepare for the race here in Misano later this year: The circuit has been laid with a new surface in recent months and the grip-level is notably increased; therefore it was important to take new points of reference for future base set-ups of their GSX-RRs.
Satoru Terada – Project Leader:
“This test has been very important to us, it allowed us to try all the things that we usually cannot try in the race weekend and it gave us some very important information. We focused mainly on finding a better way of approaching the chassis set-up, to find better traction. Both the riders improved their feelings with the bike and this is positive. To have more information is crucial for us and we also managed to finalise more options that we can exploit to find the base set-up in every race from here on. We also tried some improvements in electronics to improve the feeling with the power delivery and it gave positive results. We now have clearer ideas on where our main potential is and which are the areas that we can exploit most. We will try to take benefit from this for the second half of the season.”
Davide Brivio – Team Manager:
“One of the positives of this test is that both riders can now go on vacation with a positive mood and feeling: They both worked very hard in this heat and they both found a new feeling with their machines. It was important for us to take a break and analyse exactly where we are at the half-way point in the season, since we lacked some data that we needed time to dedicate away from a
racing weekend, to better understand where we are and where we can go. To have further options for the overall set-up and electronics is crucial for the development and on this matter we made a huge step forward.”
Maverick Viñales:
Day 1 – Laps; 82; best: 1'33.2
Day 2 – Laps; 84; best: 1'32.7
“I have the feeling that this test has been very useful for us, we understand better where we can improve and we have worked to prepare for the forthcoming races. I did many laps in a sort of race configuration with a full tank and dedicated set-up, and I felt better –and-better on every run. At the beginning I had a bad feeling with traction on the exit but also had trouble with being fast on the entrance into slow corners. We applied many improvements to the chassis and they gave positive results. Now we have many options that we already know can be useful or be adapted to every single circuit. For the feeling that I have now I wish Indy was next week, because with these improvements I feel very comfortable on my machine, but we also need some time to take a rest and – most importantly – to review all the data and consolidate our information."
Aleix Espargarò:
Day 1 – Laps; 69; best: 1'33.2
Day 2 – Laps; 52; best: 1'32.8
“The extremely hot weather conditions made this testing very hard, but I'm very happy for what we achieved. After Sachsenring it was important to get back some feeling with the front, especially in slow corners, and we could finally test several set-up configurations that at the end gave me very positive feelings. We have also improved with the electronics and worked in race configuration, verifying the consistency of performance with hard tyres, even though we didn't make any long runs or race simulations. The machine is reacting very well, the feeling I have is positive and the most important thing is that we could find different ways to approach the future races and set-up situations. This is important for a new team as we are. Now we switch off the mind for a while and enjoy a little break, but to be honest I'm looking forward to starting racing again because I feel the need to recover from the bad performance in Sachsenring.”
