Rizla Suzuki MotoGP had a tough first day at the Official IRTA Test in Jerez Spain, but was left with a clear direction for improvements as the day drew to a close.

Loris Capirossi (P11, 1’40.843, 64 laps) and Chris Vermeulen (P15, 1’41.763, 79 laps) tested many different settings on their new 2008 Rizla Suzuki GSV-Rs, as they tried to find those extra fractions of a second to put them in a more competitive position.

Both riders made definite breakthroughs later in the day and now have a clear direction in the way to go to improve on their lap-times tomorrow – weather permitting.

Today’s testing was held in dry, sunny but windy conditions at the 4.4km Spanish circuit, with track temperatures reaching 26ºC. Nicky Hayden recorded the quickest time today on his factory Honda.

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has two more days testing at Jerez including a timed 40-minute session tomorrow afternoon where the fastest rider will win a brand new BMW car.

Loris Capirossi:

“It was not an easy day for us. We worked a lot on setting up the bike and we found some good solutions at the end of the day. We will continue to work on things tomorrow and we are really hoping for good weather so we can continue with what we have found today. We have some ideas to modify the bike. It is harder than we expected here at the moment, but we think we have a way to go to get out of this situation as quick as possible.”

Chris Vermeulen

“As Loris says, it was a difficult day today with the new bike. We were one of the only teams not to come here in November and that showed. We’ve had some good points out of the new bike and also some tricky areas, and we have worked on those here. It seems that we are struggling most on the edge grip, we can’t really get the grip we want and then apply the power. We made some big steps this afternoon and halved the gap from where we were this morning, now we just need to find the other half on a race-tyre. Hopefully tomorrow will be dry and the forecast is wrong so we can get another day’s full testing in – because we really need it!”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“There is no hiding the fact that it has been a difficult and somewhat disappointing first day here at Jerez. Most of our competitors spent three days here in November, but that should really have only made a difference for the first hour or so this morning. We expected to be competitive here and that we would have made improvements on our 2007 pace – which was quite competitive at this circuit last year. There is no question that there is more potential in this GSV-R than last season’s bike, but for now the guys have some fundamental restrictions that are stopping them riding to their full capability.

“The one very positive point, however, is that the motivation and the spirit within the team is extremely upbeat and that we have a very talented group of people that will be applying themselves completely to taking big steps forward over the next couple of days.”

IRTA Test Day One Classification:

1. Nicky Hayden (Honda) 1’39.200: 2. Randy de Puniet (Honda) +0.244: 3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) +0.328: 4. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +0.429: 5. James Toseland (Yamaha) +0.478: 11. LORIS CAPIROSSI (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.643: 15. CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +2.563: