>Team SUZUKI MotoGP travels to the hot desert circuit at Losail near Doha in Qatar this weekend for the second test in its busy pre-season schedule.
With the start of the 2006 season just over a month away, every lap recorded on the dry and sometimes dusty 5.38km circuit will aid development of the all-new Suzuki GSV-R prototype race bike, which showed significant initial potential during last month's test in Malaysia.
Team SUZUKI MotoGP racers, John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen will also undertake a comprehensive race tyre test with Bridgestone. The Japanese factory has new compound, construction and profile front and rear tyres to trial at Losail. The slippery nature of the track surface and the expected high temperatures will make sure the latest generation tyres are tested to their limits.
Team SUZUKI MotoGP will be in Qatar for three days before heading off to Malaysia for a further three-day test. Then the team will return to Europe for the two Official MotoGP tests in March, before the first round of the MotoGP World Championship takes place at Jerez in Spain on Sunday 26th March.
Paul Denning Team Manager:
Following the last test at Sepang the factory has been working very hard in the short time that it had available. It has conducted many bench tests as well as testing on its own track to improve the durability and consistency of the new GSV-R. We know the bike is a lot faster than the previous version and we have the chassis to make it handle well. Its an exciting new bike in many ways, and the teething troubles experienced in Sepang are likely to be ironed out for this test.
Losail is a great place to come for testing because it will give us a chance to look at how the bike and the Bridgestone tyres perform in the most extreme of conditions. We have only raced at Qatar twice before and never conducted a test here, so every extra piece of data that we can obtain from these three days will be vital to the progress of Team SUZUKI MotoGP and our partner Bridgestone.