Team Suzuki Press Office – December 21.
The whole team’s watching as I walk over to the highly-modified GSX-R, its technicians poised to remove the tyre warmers and release the bike from its paddock stand. I climb on-board. The bike feels tall, poised high in the carbon Kevlar race fairings. The seat’s rock hard and the rear-sets force my ankles acutely rearward; it’s no armchair.
The bars are wider than expected, and their switchgear’s confusing. Crew chief Dominique Hebrard steps over and translates them – on the left is a cluster of six buttons; plus or minus traction control, pit-lane limiter, total electronics reset and two different power maps. Dominique selects full power and the bike’s Motech dash fires into life, displaying traction position, power mode and revs. I’m ready to roll, the bike’s limiter’s engaged and now all I need to do is start the beast.
This moment couldn’t have come soon enough – a chance to ride the most successful Suzuki in history. A championship-winning GSX-R1000 valued at just under a quarter of a million Euros, built and maintained by the most successful endurance team ever to grace the World Endurance Championship (with 15 WEC titles), SERT, and its 203bhp, hand-crafted weapon. I’m terrified, but can’t wait to clock-up a few laps of the complex and damp Negaro circuit in the south of France.
