Team Suzuki Press Office – August 9.
Today’s MotoGP race at Indianapolis in America ended a little under expectations for Team SUZUKI ECSTAR with both riders out of the top-10 despite solid progress made yesterday in qualifying, although weekend ultimately proved useful for experience and collecting much-needed information.
Maverick Viñales finished in 11th place, with five more points in the Championship and Aleix Espargaro was 14th, still lacking in some confidence with his GSX-RR. The whole weekend was difficult for the team, who struggled more than usual to find real confidence with the circuit; pretty unuisual for both its Tarmac quality and circuit design.
At the start Viñales – starting from ninth on the grid – immediately lost some positions and had to recover while Espargaro made a good start from his 12th place and entered the first corner in 10th. His fight for the top-10 lasted in the early laps, but a lack of confidence with the rear-end of his GSX-RR prevented him being as consistent as he wanted to be and he started to lose a few tenths-of-a-second. Viñales, however, kept his pace and started recovering position-after-position, finally ending close to the top-10.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR will now head to Brno for next weekend’s GP of the Czech Republic and the 11th round of the 2015 World Championship.
Satoru Terada – Project Leader:
“It's been a very diffucult and hard weekend but sometimes races are like this and we must keep the positives that we had. Aleix struggled the whole weekend to find a proper feeling with the bike and finally had some issue during the race; his rear wheel had issues in corner entry and now we are investigating what happened. Maverick had a pretty consistent weekend. We tried a new way to approach the race working on the race-pace as a priority and this paid back with positive results. He has some room for improvement, expecially in the beginning of the race, but his lap pace is pretty good, therefore I believe we should have better result. For sure we know that we are improving little-by-little, every race or test we do is crucial to us in gaining experience and we must be patient and continue to work following the development plan that we have.”
Maverick Viñales:
“My start was not brilliant, it's not the first time and we definitely need to work on this and train to be more effective because my pace could have been very good but I had to fight again in the middle of the pack. When I got past Yonny Hernandez I did some consistent laps in the 1'33s and was aiming to catch up to 10th or ninth place, but at the end of the race I had a little problem with the gearbox and lost some time. Despite the result I am very happy with the weekend because we could be very consistent and move forward. The new approach to the race proved to give us payback and in every race we get closer to the top. The positives are also that we are getting confirmation on the things we tested in Misano. I think we probably need another test to better understand some more things about my GSX-RR. My machine is very competitive, the lack of the seamless gearbox and some more horsepower are preventing us getting better results but I feel very confident with the team and the factory. They all are as disappointed as I am for the missing results because we all feel we can get better, but they are working very hard and I must thank them for all their support. ”
Aleix Espargaro:
“The whole weekend has been very hard for me, I couldn't find proper confidence with the bike and this affected me in the race. I made a good start and I suddenly recovered some positions, but then from lap two or three something went wrong with the rear-end of the bike; it locked-up a lot when entering the corners. I also tried to take away all the engine braking but couldn't solve the problem that way. Also when I finished the race, the tyre was destroyed and this means something went wrong. It was impossible to keep-up good lap times, I wanted to end the race as respect for the team but it was pretty dangerous. I am disappointed, but now I will reset my mind and think ahead to Brno. We will fly directly there and this will help to give us focus.”
GP of Indianapolis – Final classification:
1. Marc MARQUEZ, Repsol Honda Team - 41'55.371
2. Jorge LORENZO, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - +0.688
3. Valentino ROSSI, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - +5.966
4. Dani PEDROSA, Repsol Honda Team - +6.147
5. Andrea IANNONE, Ducati Team - +21.528
6. Bradley SMITH, Monster Yamaha Tech 3 - +21.751
7. Pol ESPARGARO, Monster Yamaha Tech 3 - +30.378
8. Cal CRUTCHLOW, CWM LCR Honda - +31.607
9. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Ducati Team - +32.821
10. Danilo PETRUCCI, Octo Pramac Racing - +34.517
11. Maverick VIÑALES, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - +39.010
12. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Octo Pramac Racing - +41.815
13. Scott REDDING, EG 0,0 Marc VDS - +50.209
14. Aleix ESPARGARO, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - +1'00.465
MotoGP Riders World Championship after Indianapolis:
1. Valentino ROSSI, Yamaha - 195
2. Jorge LORENZO, Yamaha - 186
3. Marc MARQUEZ, Honda - 139
4. Andrea IANNONE, Ducati - 29
5. Bradley SMITH, Yamaha - 97
6. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Ducati - 94
7. Dani PEDROSA, Honda - 80
8. Cal CRUTCHLOW, Honda - 4
9. Pol ESPARGARO, Yamaha - 73
10. Maverick VIÑALES, Suzuki - 62
11. Danilo PETRUCCI, Ducati - 57
12. Aleix ESPARGARO, Suzuki – 46
