Kenny Roberts tested the ever-improving GSV-R MotoGP at Valencia on Monday and Suzuki manager Garry Taylor described the session as the team’s “best test for two years”.
Kenny Roberts tested the ever-improving GSV-R MotoGP at Valencia on Monday and Suzuki manager Garry Taylor described the session as the team’s “best test for two years”.
It was Team Suzuki MotoGP’s fourth test at Valencia this year and Roberts reported further progress in making the GSV-R MotoGP machine fully-competitive.
Roberts has been joined by ex-Suzuki Superbike rider Gregorio Lavilla for two days of testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit. The Spaniard was standing in for regular rider John Hopkins, who is still sidelined by ankle injuries sustained in an off-road crash.
Following promising tests in Australia, the team reported further progress with the evolution of the 990cc V4 four-stroke GSV-R, which is Suzuki’s fastest racing motorcycle to date. The team is still testing an interim machine – another development stage in the evolution towards the full 2004 racer.
“We’re getting more and more things figured out every time – and going faster on race tyres than we did last year on qualifying tyres. That’s quite a big difference,” said Roberts, before flying home to the States to prepare for the next round of tests before the start of the season in South Africa in mid- April.
“We are not releasing lap times, but that was our most positive test for a couple of years. Kenny is a racer and he has the sniff of a chance of success,” Taylor said.
“It’s the result of a lot of hard work from the factory, addressing the problems we had last year, and also a systematic programme of testing. We’ve made real progress,” he added.
Roberts said: “We’re getting more things figured out, and we’re starting to get the bike so it has a better feeling. It’s impossible to say that we’re competitive already; it wouldn’t be constructive to think about that.
“We can only base our progress on what we achieved last year – and we’d win every time compared with that. We are consistently faster on race tyres than we were last year on soft qualifying tyres,” the veteran said.
