HOPKINS ON THE PACE AT DONINGTON
30 June 2006 - Rizla-Suzuki

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP racer John Hopkins powered his Suzuki GSV-R to second place on the leaderboard after the first day’s practice for the GAS British Grand Prix at Donington today.

Anglo-American Hopkins (1’29.025, 59 laps) followed on from his good showing at Assen last weekend – where he recorded his first pole-position – and recorded consistently fast times throughout today’s two sessions. He worked hard with his crew to get the best out of his bike and is sure that he can improve on his race potential tomorrow.

Chris Vermeulen (P12, 1’30.799, 58 laps) used both sessions to re-acquaint himself with the Donington circuit – a track he hasn’t ridden at since 2001 – and concentrated on dialling in the best suspension set-up in preparation for Sunday and worked on finding the correct Bridgestone tyres for the 30 lap race.

Today’s sessions were held in dry and warm conditions with track surface temperatures hitting 44°C in the afternoon. Today’s fastest time was set by Spaniard Dani Pedrosa on his factory Honda. Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has one more practice session on Saturday morning followed by an hour’s qualifying in the afternoon. Round nine of the MotoGP World Championship gets underway at 13.00hrs local time (12.00hrs GMT) on Sunday 2nd July.

John Hopkins:

“It was a good session. We are trying to get the best tyre that we can for Sunday and working well with Bridgestone to come up with the best solution. The bike is coming along really well and the guys are working very hard and all in all everything seems good at the moment. We still have a few things to work on tomorrow to get a better level of consistency but we are really looking forward to the challenge and I’m sure it’s going to be fun!”

Chris Vermeulen:

“It’s good to come back to Donington. It’s been about five years since I was last here and the track seems a lot tighter on a GP bike than it did on a Supersport 600 back then - things seem to rush up quite a bit quicker! We tried some different things with chassis settings today as I have struggled a bit with front grip durability at the last two races. It seems to be working well as we went quite a bit quicker this afternoon than we did this morning – which is good. We are working hard with Bridgestone on the tyres and we have a few things extra to try tomorrow and hopefully we can go quicker again.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“It’s been a good strong start to the first day of the British Grand Prix. John has put in consistently fast laps and is already showing that he could be a force to be reckoned with here this weekend. The GSV-R is basically working well – it’s certainly capable of a very good lap-time – and we have to focus on improving our potential over the 30 laps on Sunday. Bridgestone and John’s crew have some clear targets to achieve this tomorrow.

“Chris used today very much as a marker for the rest of the weekend. He set out to learn the lines and focus on riding a Grand Prix bike around this circuit. He is less than a second off today’s fastest time and I’m sure that he has quite a bit still to find tomorrow when he gets the best feel from his bike. We are reasonably confident of a good result here and the whole team is certainly working towards that goal!”

GAS British Grand Prix Free Practice Classification:

1. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1’28.970: 2. JOHN HOPKINS (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.055: 3. Casey Stoner (Honda) +0.094: 12. CHRIS VERMEULEN (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +0.971:

www.rizla-suzuki.co.uk

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