"These were the same positions for the team this weekend as they were at Phillip Island last Sunday, but whilst the Australian result was quite positive this was a little disappointing," confessed team manager Paul Denning. "We felt coming here that the whole package was capable of a podium finish and even going into race-day today that was very much our target, but it didn't quite work out like that. It was not as if we were terrible, but we just seemed to lack that extra half to three-quarters-of-a-second a lap that we needed to run the pace of the fastest riders.
Test rider Nobuatsu Aoki rode a decent race on a prototype version of the 2008 GSV-R. Starting from 19th on the grid he got a good start and was up to 15th at the end of the first lap and reached 13th at the finish.
"First of all I would like to say thanks to all of my guys for their help this weekend, but especially thanks to Mr Oonishi who decided to bring the prototype machine here for me to ride and I am very honoured and grateful to him for that," said the Japanese. "Until yesterday we had many small problems with the bike but the mechanics and engineers worked so hard last night and today the bike performed perfect! For a shakedown race this was a good start and in two weeks time we will hand the bike over to the grand prix team, but until then we will try to improve it a little bit more. We will also keep working on it in the winter tests so it will be right when next season comes. Once again I would like to show my appreciation to everybody involved this weekend."
Rizla Suzuki will stay at Sepang for a day's testing on Monday, when all three riders will be joined by recently crowned AMA Superbike champion Ben Spies.
