MotoGP 2005

Kenny Roberts Jr narrowly missed out on a hard-fought top-10 position at today’s Marlboro Grand Prix of Qatar, as team-mate John Hopkins was forced to pit and change his rear tyre before completing the race.

Roberts Jr finished in 11th place after the 22-lap race and was looking likely to challenge Loris Capirossi for another position higher up the field, but a lack of grip made the ex World Champion decide to bring the Suzuki GSV-R home safely in the points rather than risk all in the closing stages.

Both Roberts Jr and Hopkins were involved in an early five man battle that also included the Hondas of Alex Barros, Max Biaggi and Makoto Tamada. The Suzuki racers more than held their own even though they were struggling with acceleration against their Honda counterparts. Unfortunately for Hopkins he couldn’t find any feeling from his tyres, and having run off the track, was forced into a pit-stop at the end of lap nine. He changed his rear tyre and then re-joined the race. Although now a lap down he managed to post consistent lap times that were equal to riders inside the top-10.

Today’s race was held in scorching temperatures of 39 degrees and the small but enthusiastic crowd were treated to an exciting race all through the field. The eventual winner was World Champion Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha – his 10th victory of the season.

Team SUZUKI MotoGP will now travel to Phillip Island in Australia for the next round of the MotoGP World Championship on Sunday 16th October.

Kenny Roberts Jr:
“Today was always going to be a difficult race for us. I tried to make up time on everybody in the sections that you normally don’t have to make up time in, just to stay with some of the guys - it’s really difficult having to ride like that. You are never able to relax, even along the straights because you are constantly having to get the maximum out of the bike. Sometimes that forces mistakes and also forces you to be hard on the tyres. The start was pretty much as I expected from the fourth row and I just tried to stay consistent and on the racing line, that was really the best opportunity I had – to be consistent. At the end Loris was back there because he had run off the track and I just tried to catch him because it looked like he was struggling. I picked up on him but in the last couple of laps I had used my tyre to its full extent through riding so hard so I settled for where I was. We know what we need to do to get better and Suzuki is more than ever going in the right direction as far as the engine is concerned. But we still need a big jump.”

John Hopkins:
“I’m disappointed as you’d expect - anybody would be! The first set of tyres I had in I just couldn’t get them to work - I was really struggling. I kept missing the apexes and running wide. I passed Tamada and was planning on catching up to Kenny and Barros and I ran it in a little bit harder than usual and ran off the track and into the dirt. I came in and put in a completely different tyre – one that we had only used once earlier on in the week and that at the time didn’t work really well. I went out and I caught up with Shane Byrne but I didn’t want to mess up his lines so I’d let him go for one lap and then catch up to him on the next. It was easy to do 59’s consistently to the end of the race. It was unfortunate really because I think a top-10 was a possibility, but it has given me a little bit more anger and determination to keep me going until we get to Phillip Island.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“After a difficult weekend, 11th was probably realistically the best we could have expected. Kenny gave 100 percent the whole race and after things has settled down in the first few laps he was able to run high 59’s which was on a par with all the other Bridgestone runners. In fact if anything our level of performance took a step forward during the second half of the race. Kenny tried to chase Loris down and got within a second with a couple of laps to go, but he nearly crashed trying to close in and that was enough warning to just bring the bike home.

John experienced a difficult situation with a lack of feel and a lack of turning on a rear tyre which we had done quite a lot of work on over the weekend, and appeared to be the right choice for the race. He came in and swapped to the same compound that Kenny was using and immediately the bike was fixed. He was able to run in the high 59’s quite steadily. It was a shame we didn’t start on that tyre or I am sure we would have had both the GSV-R’s in the points. A very tough weekend here in Qatar for Suzuki, but if there are some positives to take away it would be the effort of both riders and the fact that neither bike missed a beat all weekend in the desert heat – the durability of the GSV-R has certainly improved.”

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