DISAPPOINTMENT FOR SUZUKI IN TURKEY
24 October 2005 - Suzuki Racing

John Hopkins finished in a point scoring position at the Grand Prix Of Turkey from the Istanbul Park Circuit, as a combination of difficulties took its toll.

Hopkins has been struggling with a heavy cold all weekend and the symptoms of that and some other factors contributed to one of his most lacklustre performances of the season. An indication of how the Anglo –American has suffered since taking to the track on Friday, is that his best lap time in the first practice session – the first time he had ever ridden on the track – was only .057 seconds slower than his quickest race-lap today.

Today’s race was held in sunny conditions with the track temperature reaching 25 degrees, the warmest it has been all weekend. The relatively small but excited crowd of just over 14,000 witnessed Marco Melandri win his first-ever MotoGP race.

Team SUZUKI MotoGP will now move onto Valencia in Spain for the final round of the MotoGP World Championship on Sunday 6th November, where Hopkins will be joined by Nobuatsu Aoki, who will be replacing the injured Kenny Roberts Jr.

John Hopkins:

“Basically I’m in no way satisfied with myself. We need to finish much higher than that! I put a lot of the blame on my riding, I have been ill for the weekend and could have been better. On top of that I had a tyre problem from half-way through the race, whether that was down to the lack of information we had or the tyre, we don’t know. The only thing we want to remember from this weekend is the way the track goes so we can be better when we come here next year.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“The combination of bike, tyre and rider performance this weekend has been our worst in the 2005 Grand Prix season. Our final setting on race day in terms of tyre choice and overall bike package was nowhere near as good as it could have been. This was largely caused by John’s illness over the weekend and the lack of pace and accurate feedback that resulted from that.

“The racetrack is fantastic and we need to make sure we can enjoy it a lot more when we return in April.

“Suzuki would like to send its congratulations to Marco Melandri on his first ever MotoGP victory. His performance today shows us the level that Suzuki needs to achieve.''

Grand Prix Of Turkey Race Classification

1. Marco Melandri (Honda) 41’44.139: 2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) +1.513: 3. Nicky Hayden (Honda) +6.873: 4. Sete Gibernau (Honda) +12.420: 5. Carlos Checa (Ducati) +26.963: 6. Toni Elias (Yamaha) +29.105: 7. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +29.255: 8. Makoto Tamada (Honda) +33.345: 9. Alex Barros (Honda) +33.790: 10. Shinya Nakano (Kawasaki) +44.225: 15. JOHN HOPKINS (TEAM SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1’03.391:

World Championship Classification

1. Rossi 351: 2. Melandri 195: 3. Hayden 186: 4. Edwards 171: 5. Max Biaggi (Honda) 163: 6. Gibernau 150: 7. Loris Capirossi (Ducati) 148: 8. Barros 136: 9. Checa 125: 10. Nakano 93: 13. KENNY ROBERTS JR (TEAM SUZUKI MOTOGP) 63: 14. JOHN HOPKINS (TEAM SUZUKI MOTOGP) 60:

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