Disappointment at Suzuki.

A double top ten finish in Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix was of little consolation for Rizla Suzuki.

Chris Vermeulen was the first GSV-R rider home, the Australian getting a great start from 13th position on the grid to hold eighth by the end of lap one.

Vermeulen, Portuguese MotoGP Race 2008
Vermeulen, Portuguese MotoGP Race 2008
© Gold and Goose

A double top ten finish in Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix was of little consolation for Rizla Suzuki.

Chris Vermeulen was the first GSV-R rider home, the Australian getting a great start from 13th position on the grid to hold eighth by the end of lap one.

Despite dropping back to tenth during the middle of the race, the Australian star was helped by misfortune for riders ahead of him to return to eighth by the flag.

"I made a good start from the fifth row and picked up some places in the first couple of corners. It was spitting with rain a bit at the start so it made it difficult to judge how hard to push. I got into a good position and had a battle with Stoner, Toseland and de Puniet for quite a long while in the race," said Chris. " Towards the end we started to get a bit of front end vibration and that caused me to slow down a bit, but it is the closest we have been to the front this year and we must keep making progress."

Team-mate Loris Capirossi finished two-seconds and one place further back after a demanding race.

"I didn't expect such a difficult race because we did such a good job in practice and I thought we would do much better," admitted the Italian. "I was fighting a lot from the beginning for grip and I don't know why the tyres didn't work well, maybe it was a change in the temperature or the humidity - I just don't know. I am obviously disappointed - not just for me but for the whole team - because our target is much bigger than what we achieved today."

"It has been a disappointing grand prix and we'd hoped for a lot better," declared team manager Paul Denning. "We got both bikes into the top ten but realistically we needed a bit of luck to do that, it's very clear that we still have a lot of work to do."

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will join many of its rivals back at Estoril for testing on Monday, before travelling to Shanghai in China for round four of the 2008 MotoGP World Championship on Sunday 4th May.

"We are here for a full day's testing and let's hope we can find a bit more pace, put this race behind us and head to Shanghai where we know the Bridgestone tyres and the Suzuki GSV-R have worked well in the past," said Denning, referring to John Hopkins' podium finish in the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix.

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