Crash.net
There are some interesting rumours surrounding the Rizla Suzuki team at the moment, is it correct that Neil Hodgson could replace Chris Walker?
Jason McClean:
All rumours I'm afraid. The simple fact of the matter is it started off at World Superbikes at
Silverstone a few weeks ago. Team owner, Paul Denning and team manager Simon Buckmaster were along there and met up with Yukio Kagayama who is one of our old riders and they were quite interested in putting Yuki on the bike. We wanted him to test the bike just to give us another opinion on it as he knows the team well, knows the technicians well and knows the bike very well so it seems like a match made. It was just to get another opinion and assistance on developing the bike and extracting the performance from it.
We got a Cadwell Park track day booked late last week where we are joining one or two of the other teams and we went to Yuki to see if he was available and he wasn't. So we thought we want to do this track day, we want to go down this route of getting another opinion. Fortunately Neil Hodgson was available so Neil will be riding our bike on Wednesday and Thursday. It is simply to give the team another opinion, a bit of a test and hopefully that will help both Cal and Chris for
Knockhill and for the rest of the season.
Crash.net
Why did you opt for Hodgson when he has been out of the race scene for a while?
JMcC:
He is an ex World and British Superbike Champion and he is hungry. He is testing for
Bridgestone in the
MotoGP Championship using the Ducatis. He is a quality rider, there are no two ways about it and we want someone who can give us an opinion on it and that means you have to go to that level of rider so that is what we have done plain and simple. We are hoping he will have a good test and be able to give us some direction. The thing is this year hasn't
.well Cal Crutchlow is performing as we expect as he is a rookie to the class and he is going very well. The race craft that he has got is still coming and when that comes he is running lap times which are good for the top five it's fantastic. In terms of Chris, he has a few more issues getting the bike set up to his liking and that is the reason why we are doing these tests and we want him up at the front and winning races and on the podium every weekend. So we will pull out every stop we can in order to do so.
Crash.net
Is there any possibility that you would run Hodgson perhaps as a third rider?
JMcC:
I'll not say it will never happen because there are always opportunities but at the minute, to put the record straight for everybody our riders are Chris Walker and Cal Cructhlow. They have full Rizla Suzuki support and we are very grateful for Neil Hodgson to be coming along to help us develop our GSX-R. If it is a success he may get to test again and certainly through out the rest of this season Rizla Suzuki will do everything it can within its power to get back to the front to of the races which is where our fans want us to be, where our riders want to be, where our sponsors want to be.
