Suzuki focus on electronics at Catalunya Test

Suzuki get down to work at Catalunya MotoGP test after a trying race weekend

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Following a very trying GP of Catalunya for Suzuki, the team remained in Montmelò circuit for the scheduled IRTA test, deploying the full roster of available riders; recent CatalanGP riders Andrea Iannone and Sylvain Guintoli were joined by Alex Rins, returning from the injury that took him off the team for four races.

The main focus of Iannone and Guintoli was to verify the data collected thus far, especially that coming from the last GP in Catalunya, while Rins´ only objective was to get back on a MotoGP machine and find that right touch.

The day has been very intense, with many data comparisons made and the introduction of a first bundle of technical improvements to the set up and electronic configuration. The work will proceed tomorrow with another day of private testing, again with three crews and riders taking to the track.

Ken Kawauchi – Suzuki MotoGP Technical Manager

“It was quite a busy day, with three riders and five bikes, including a test bike from Japan. We had a vast number of items to test, but today, thanks to our mechanics and staff, we were able to check out many of them. Now this is good, but it also gives me a headache because we had so much feedback from the riders and now we have to analyse all the data again, and there is still a huge amount of work to do. Hopefully, we will take away the important information from this day and find a positive direction in which to work. Tomorrow we will have a further chance to test, which is very important to us, and I believe this extensive work we are doing here will be useful for the future.”

Andrea Iannone

“We had the main focus of retesting some items we already had at our disposal, since it was important we check if are moving in the right direction. We found some confirmation of this, which means we are set to move forward, working to refine what we have already developed. Then we have new items that arrived from Japan, but we only introduced them at the end of the day. Tomorrow we will test more intensively. It has been a hard working day, but that’s what is needed to become more efficient and solve some of the problems we are encountering with the performance and the feeling of the bike.”

Alex Rins

“I’m very happy with how the test day went, and to be back on my GSX-RR. The truth is that we didn’t try many new things since my first priority was to get back the feel of riding a MotoGP machine after injury. My foot didn’t hurt or give me any troubles, so I’m very positive. This will also give me the chance to introduce some new items tomorrow, and to contribute to the development of the bike. I’m not at 100%, but I feel fit and don’t feel as though I will have further problems because of this injury. Tomorrow will be important, both because we will work with new items and new setups, but also because it will be the final check before my comeback at Assen.”

Sylvain Guintoli

“We had a very busy day today, testing a lot of different bikes and different parts and also strategies. It’s been very interesting, and I think it’s been a successful day, a great day testing with plenty of laps. We’ve assessed quite a lot of different new parts and hopefully they will give Suzuki hints about the direction to follow with the bike´s development. It’s been a positive day because we made a considerable number of improvements.”