Suzuki Alstare Starts 2009 Test Preparations
Team Suzuki Alstare has started early preparations for the 2009 World Superbike season with a three-day test at Phillip Island in Australia that ended today.During the test, held mostly in good conditions, Yukio Kagayama and Max Neukirchner started to work with the all-new 2009 GSX-R1000 Suzuki at the demanding circuit and understand the new bike. They completed over 420 laps and gave a lot of valuable feedback to the team, Kagayama lapping faster than his time earlier, while Neukirchner was also on the pace.
Before the test, Alstare's mechanics spent the best part of two weeks in Japan building the bikes before they were shipped to Phillip Island and the bikes will now be sent to the Kyalami circuit in South Africa for the first official test of the 2009 season on December 10-12th.
Yukio Kagayama:
"As the bike is new, there is much work to do as you can imagine. I managed to do a short shakedown test in Japan before the bikes were sent to Phillip Island, so these tests were my second time on the bike. My first impression of the new bike is that it handles better than before, but we shall have to see if that is still the case once we develop it further. Of course, we tested many things these past three days and have done a lot of work with the chassis, suspension and different links. We tried different geometries and different swing-arm lengths - all the normal stuff."I started off trying to find the right balance of the bike for me to be comfortable and make it easy to ride and because of this we didn't use any of the electronics. We tried some different brakes on the second day and some long runs on day three to find out how the new bike affects the tyres and their consistency. All in all, I am happy because the tests went well: I had no crash and was faster than before here. Now we need to work on the rest of the bike and the electronics and be ready for the start of next season."
Max Neukirchner:
"I think that this bike handles better than my old bike and its chassis feels good. We did a lot of work, starting with the chassis, suspension, different swing-arms and links and generally I tried to get to know the bike and how it works. On the second day I had a crash on the fast left-hander before Lukey Heights. The front tyre had done 10 laps and the rear was new and I just lost the front end, but luckily all I did to myself was bruise my right elbow."Today, we did some long runs to try and find a good set-up to conserve tyre life, but we didn't really do any work on the electronics because we wanted to understand what the bike was doing first. Each day I got more confident in the bike and more comfortable. I am sure I would've gone faster at the end, were it not for a swing-arm that was a bit too long, but I'm happy generally and looking forward to the next time on the bike and improving it for the start of the 2009 season."Tag: Suzukit WSBK 2009 Yukio Kagayama Max Neukirchner Suzuki Alstare Racing Superbike GSX-R1000
