Team Suzuki Ecstar has expressed its frustrations at the ongoing delay to the start of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship having felt as though it was ‘ready’ to challenge for wins from the opening round.
Much like all global sport, MotoGP is on hiatus amid the spread of the coronavirus pandemic with the opening round currently scheduled for Jerez on May 1-3, though it is expected this will be pushed back again as Spain reels from a sharp increase in cases and deaths.
The pause is particularly ill-timed for certain teams which performed strongly during pre-season testing, with Suzuki and Yamaha appearing to be the manufacturers best prepared for the now cancelled curtain raiser in Qatar.
Indeed, both Alex Rins and Joan Mir were lapping inside the top six almost throughout testing in Malaysia and Qatar, with each rider talking up the step forward made with the GSX-RR.
While Suzuki team boss Davide Brivio ultimately sees the bigger picture of what is now a global crisis, he says it doesn’t take away the disappointment of not competing.
“From a purely sporting point of view it’s a really big pity, and we’re disappointed because we felt we had good potential and we were really interested to see where it would take us; we wanted to start racing.
"But now the priorities are totally different, the world is in crisis and first we have to fix this and take care of ourselves and our loved ones.
“They [Alex and Joan] are not happy because they were really ready to start the season, but they are in good shape, training a lot and staying focused, trying to stay ready for whenever the first race will happen. Everybody understands the priorities and the safety precautions so they simply accept it like everyone else.
While the likes of Honda no have time to fix the evident issues with its RC213V, Brivio says such was the bike’s strong showing in testing that it doesn’t want to make any more adjustments without any track testing.
“At SMC (Suzuki Motor Corporation) they are trying to work on the last tweaks ready to start the championship. But from a technical point of view we were pretty OK and the bike was ready, so there is not much we want to do there.”
What next for Suzuki Ecstar?
Of all the teams, Suzuki probably has the most to lose from this enforced hiatus.
It already cedes a little ground to the likes of Honda and Yamaha by not running a satellite team to have up to four bikes confirming its data, but that didn’t stop it showing the most notable step forward of the race-winning teams over the winter.
However, with a machine working very well in the hands of Rins and Mir over the winter, it will be loathed to make any big changes to the GSX-RRs as they gather dust waiting for the season start.
Suffice to say, pre-season predictions are largely out of the window now!
