Points for Ryo.

Team Suzuki's Akira Ryo got into the points at the seventh round of the MotoGP championship at Assen today, finishing 15th.

Ryo has scored in every MotoGP race he has entered this year on the awesome new Suzuki GSV-R race bike.

The 34-year-old Japanese rider reckoned he could have finished higher if the changeable Dutch weather had not interrupted half of the practice sessions.

Ryo had never ridden at the notoriously difficult to learn Assen track before and with a lack of dry testing, found it difficult set up his bike for the race. Assen is widely acknowledged as one of the most difficult tracks on the MotoGP calendar to learn and to ride quickly.

The reigning All-Japan Superbike Champion raced using a GSV-R with a modified engine and chassis. Testing new parts and settings, he is content to leave Holland with a point scoring finish after making some significant progress in developing the 990cc four-stroke Suzuki MotoGP racer.

Starting from 21st on the grid, Ryo lapped consistently, getting faster as the race progressed, eventually finishing 15th.

Ryo said: "Without enough time in practice to find good settings, we thought we'd try something different. In this morning's warm up session we decided to make some major revisions to the chassis set-up.

"The changes we made to the chassis setting didn't work as expected and the bike felt very heavy through the turns. This is good progress in helping Suzuki to develop the GSV-R. We have tried something different and will be able to learn from this experience for the next race at Donington."

Suzuki team manager Garry Taylor added: "This was always going to be a tough meeting for Akira as he has never raced at Assen before and it is a very hard track to learn. The weather didn't help him during practice and qualifying, with it going from wet to dry and not allowing him to find his pace. But he has scored a point today."

The GSV-R made its racing debut at the first round of the 2002 season, a full year earlier than expected. Ryo, riding as a wild-card entry at the first round of the Championship at Suzuka in April, finished runner-up. He has been called in as a mid-season Team Suzuki wild card entry to the MotoGP Championship to speed up the GSV-R's development progress. He rode at Catalunya, Spain, in mid-June, finishing 11th. He will race at the British GP at Donington Park on July 14th.

Honda's Valentino Rossi won the race and Telefonica MoviStar Suzuki rider Kenny Roberts Jr. finished sixth.