By Peter McLaren
Impatient to repeat the results that made him to a World Supersport champion and World Superbike title runner-up by the age of 23,
Chris Vermeulen is already focussed on making a fast start to his third
MotoGP season, at Qatar on March 9.
"It's very much about Qatar. That's
the main objective at the moment," the Australian told
Crash.net. "Of course we want to be world champion - as everyone else does - but our goal right now is focussing on Qatar. We want to be competitive in that race and battle for the podium. It's so important to start the year well."
Fortunately, the Suzuki factory shares that philosophy, with a prototype version of the 2008 GSV-R given its race debut back in last October's Malaysian Grand Prix, in the hands of test rider Nobuatsu Aoki.
The '08 was then handed to the race team straight after the Valencian season finale and all its main components now look to be place with the arrival of the latest specification engine - which Vermeulen expects to start the season with - at Sepang last week.
"The new engine has been working well. Both myself and Loris [Capirossi] have commented on the power we can feel and for a rider to feel a power change means that they've made a good step," said Vermeulen, before confirming: "I would imagine that this will be the engine we start the first race with."
A more visible development at Sepang was the use of experimental new bodywork (in black, see lower pics), which both Rizla riders tested heavily over the three days.
"We've had some issues with how the fairing puts weight through the bike at high speed - how the aerodynamics effect weight distribution. Especially at Phillip Island, when we tested there in November," Vermeulen explained. "Suzuki have worked hard and come back with some different fairings. They seem to be an improvement here, so we'll test them again at Phillip Island [from January 30]."
