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Steady start for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP in Portugal |
Steady start for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP in Portugal
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP racers John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen were sixth
and eleventh
quickest respectively after today's free practice sessions, in
preparation for
Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix in Estoril.
Hopkins (1'38.471, 49 laps) and Vermeulen (1'39.655, 52 laps) both
worked hard to
achieve the optimum settings for their respective Suzuki GSV-Rs at the
demanding and
technically difficult Estoril circuit. The two Rizla Suzuki men were
separated by
less than two-tenths of a second at the end of the day, as the top 17
riders were
covered by only 0.969 seconds, with championship leader Casey Stoner on
the
Bridgestone-shod Ducati the fastest.
Vermeulen showed a marked improvement throughout the day and in the
second session
took over eight-tenths of a second from his fastest time this morning.
He believes
there is more to come and is very comfortable with the way the bike and
his tyres
are working.
Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has one more practice session on Saturday morning,
followed by
an hour of qualifying in the afternoon to determine grid positions for
Sunday's
28-lap race that gets underway at 15.00hrs local time (14.00hrs GMT).
John Hopkins:
"Going into this morning was all about working our way through our tyre
allocation
with Bridgestone and getting the best results for the cooler conditions.
We changed
some gearbox and suspension settings because the set-up for this track
is not as
easy as it has been at some of the circuits recently. But we've got our
heads down
and Stuart and the crew have done a good job in finding what we need.
This afternoon
we had a couple of minor mechanical glitches, but we got them all sorted
out by the
end and we're confident about what we can do tomorrow. If we can
continue from how
we ended this afternoon's session we will make some serious improvements
tomorrow!"
Chris Vermeulen:
"This is only my second time here, but I do feel a lot more comfortable
now that I
know my way around a bit more. The track felt slippery to me, especially
after the
last few circuits we've been to. Bridgestone has done a fantastic job
here –
compared to what we had last year – and the tyres are working really
well. I'm
feeling very comfortable with the bike and our base set-up seems to be
working well.
Although I am only in 11th place, all the lap times are quite close so
I'm sure I
can make up some places tomorrow. We still have a few changes to make on
Saturday
and with it being so close it will be important to get a good grid
position so I can
be up towards the front right from the start on Sunday."
Stuart Shenton – Chief Technician for John Hopkins:
"We had to change a couple of little things today to get the set-up
right for this
circuit. We worked closely with Bridgestone to try and get the best
pairing of tyres
for the track and they have certainly made a huge step-up with the tyres
from last
year - I think we are pretty close to our tyre choice for Sunday's race.
This
afternoon we had a small mechanical problem with John's bike, but we
identified it
before the end of the session. He did finish the afternoon on his other
bike and
although it was set-up the same as his first bike John felt some small
differences
that we will be working on tomorrow. We need to tidy up some of the
details and make
sure we are ready for Sunday afternoon."
Tom O'Kane – Chief Technician for Chris Vermeulen:
"Chris worked through chassis and tyre settings all day as we needed to
get in as
much work today as we could, because some of the weather forecasts show
rain for
tomorrow. He improved on his times throughout the day and he knows there
is still a
bit more to come tomorrow. We will be working well into this evening to
analyse all
the data from today to make sure that we make the correct choices in
time for the
race."
bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal Combined Free Practice
Classification:
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1'37.950: 2. Makoto Tamada (Yamaha) +0.039: 3.
Valentino
Rossi (Yamaha) +0.170: 4. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) +0.251: 5. Randy de
Puniet (Kawasaki)
+0.337: 6. JOHN HOPKINS (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.521: 11. CHRIS
VERMEULEN (RIZLA
SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.705:
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