Thursday, August 18, 2011

Kallio impressed by progress of Suter MotoGP prototype



Mika Kallio’s duties as Test rider for the developing Suter MotoGP machine continued on Monday at Brno, where the Finnish rider put in a solid 81 laps as the Swiss manufacturer and its collaborators in the project – the Marc VDS Racing Team – made further progress on the 2012 bike.

Six weeks on from the previous Test at Mugello the Suter and Marc VDS engineers had made noticeable progress, and by the close of the day Kallio had posted a best lap of 2’00.144 on the BMW engine powered machine – 3.976s off Casey Stoner’s top time on the Honda 1000cc machine.

Reviewing the progress made, Kallio told motogp.com: “Here, things went much better than before. We tested three times in Mugello and we had a few problems there – the lap time was not at the level we wanted it to be, and we were too slow. However, when we arrived here everything was immediately better, it looks like the bike fits this track better, and lap-by-lap I’m getting used to this level of power again and the lap time has been improving. Step by step we have made quite a lot of changes for the electronics and the clutch system, and for the engine braking too, and it looks like we made quite a big step today. I think the team and I can be happy, our level is quite good at the moment.”

Kallio is confident the encouraging advances in the machine can continue, and he added: “I think we still need to improve on the same areas that we improved here. The biggest problem in this Test was that when I entered the corners I didn’t have such a good feeling in the rear, there is a little bit too much sliding, and it’s difficult to turn in because I miss the feeling in the rear a little bit. It looks like that’s where we’re losing the time. Of course we need to work a lot with the electronics and many other small things, but I think if we can improve the rear in entry, then it should be better.”

source: MotoGP Official Website

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