A bitter Capirossi lost his Ducati Marlboro ride to
Marco Melandri after a difficult 2007 season, in which he salvaged one race win whilst team-mate
Casey Stoner charged to ten victories and the world title.
The 35-year-old then moved to Suzuki with the aim of securing the factory's first dry victory of the four-stroke era but, with the 2008 GSV-R facing early season handling problems, Loris has been forced to settle for a best finish of fifth - and peak grid position of tenth - from the three rounds so far.
Team-mate Vermeulen, a Suzuki rider since 2006 and race winner in the wet at Le Mans last year, has qualified a high of eleventh and finished a best of eighth. So far, the Suzuki team-mates are split 2 - 1 in favour of Capirossi in both qualifying and race results.
As is the situation with most riders, Capirossi's two-year contract with Suzuki contains 'performance criteria'. This is done to ensure that if a rider/team partnership simply isn't working then there is no contractual obligation on either party to continue for a further year.
With the GSV-R playing catch-up, it is possible that Capirossi could impress the team but still not meet the performance criteria for an automatic contract renewal. For example, if the criteria lists an 'optimistic' minimum championship position, number of points and/or podiums by mid season.
However, if the criterion is relative - in other words measured against that of team-mate Vermeulen - then Capirossi stands a very good chance of an automatic renewal, making new contract talks unnecessary.
"Loris has got a contract for 2009 which is based on performance criteria and if those criteria are met he has an automatic renewal with Suzuki in any case," team manager Paul Denning told the official
MotoGP website. "If they are not met he would be a free agent to look elsewhere and so would Suzuki. However, it has been such an excellent start to the relationship that at this stage we are very happy with Loris and I believe Loris is very happy with the team.
