Rizla Suzuki MotoGP concluded its first 2008 pre-season test at Valencia in Spain today, with promising results from all three riders present.

Chris Vermeulen spent the day evaluating the prototype 2008 Suzuki GSV-R and conducted thorough tests for the Suzuki factory and for Bridgestone. Vermeulen improved his times throughout the day and was able to record a lap-time quicker than he achieved in Sunday’s race.

Loris Capirossi continued with the impressive start to his Suzuki career as he conducted in-depth tests on a variety of set-ups and characteristics of the 2007 machine, in an effort to fully understand the bike before he steps on the new GSV-R in Malaysia later this month.

Nobuatsu Aoki again put in another great performance as he carried on with a non-stop test programme to evaluate many parts on the prototype bike, to make sure that the Vermeulen and Capirossi have the best start possible to next year’s campaign.

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will now travel to Sepang in Malaysia for the next instalment of its 2008 testing schedule later this month. The 2008 MotoGP World Championship begins at Doha in Qatar next March.

Chris Vermeulen:

“It’s been a great second day and we got a lot done. We had plenty of time on the track today and tested a lot of stuff for Suzuki and Bridgestone. It was good because I was able to use the 2008 bike all day and I feel like we have made steps forward with it already. I was able to do consistent laps on that bike a lot easier than I did on the race weekend – using the same tyres – so that was great. I’m now looking forward to the Sepang test that is coming up and we will be very busy there that’s for sure. Suzuki definitely means business next year and that’s great to see!”

Loris Capirossi:

“This second day has been really interesting for me because I have begun to modify many things on the bike and start to really understand how it works. We didn’t do any tyre tests, we just used the 2007 bike and I have been very happy with how the day has gone. I am enjoying my time and it is important to keep working like this and get a total feel of the bike. I didn’t want to take a lot of risks today - I just needed to make sure I learnt all about the bike - but the next test in Malaysia will be really important because then I will be able to jump on the 2008 bike to see the comparison. The atmosphere in this team is really good and it is so easy to work here – for me this was the best choice I could have made!”

Nobuatsu Aoki:

“We have mainly tested engine mapping control and we just made sure that it all worked properly because we have only tested it at Motegi and Sepang so far. We got a lot more data today and that will give us more reliability in the system for Chris and Loris to use. I think that things are going very good because Chris likes the new bike and I like that!”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“It's been another very productive day’s work for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP. For Loris to run through such a wide range of settings and options, to help him fully understand the full character of the bike, was a very pleasing thing to see. He now has an idea of which direction to take in order to get the most from the GSV-R. Loris has been consistently quick without taking any risks. It’s been a great start to his career at Suzuki and a very satisfying couple of days work for everybody – and we all really like the guy!

“Chris spent the whole day on the 2008 prototype machine and was able to go faster than he did on the 2007 bike, and more importantly provide Suzuki’s engineers with some constructive and clear comments to help finalise the bike’s specifications for next year’s challenge on the World Championship, which Chris is very focussed on.

“Overall Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has enjoyed its trip to Valencia both on the race-track and on the test-track and we are all looking forward to going to Sepang next week and continuing with the programme.”