Suzuki to test race ready bike at Qatar

Suzuki riders Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro will have the race ready version of their new GSX-RR machine for the first time at the final pre-season test of the winter, which gets underway today at Qatar’s Losail circuit, where the season will kick off in two weeks time.

Speaking ahead of the test starting, team boss Davide Brivio confirmed that after using the previous Sepang tests to perfect the bikes’ setup, they will now switch to the version they intend to use in the opening few rounds of the season.

“We are all looking forward for this final test in Qatar. It will be very close to the race therefore we will face real race conditions and see how our bikes and riders can improve further. In Malaysia we had pretty encouraging results: both riders are happy with the bikes and we had positive improvements in set-ups and electronics.”

“In Losail we will test the final version of the software, which will be used in early races, and we will work mainly to get ready for opening GP of Qatar. Since we are a young team we don’t have many previous data to rely on, so this is the chance for us to gather information that we will use in the race at the end of the month.”