Solid seventh for battler Capirossi

The Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix weekend started with Loris Capirossi’s future in MotoGP being confirmed for at least one more season when his 2010 contract with Suzuki was announced - and it ended with the tough Italian securing another solid top ten result for his team. However, there were some considerable obstacles to overcome in between.

The Suzuki team did not appear to be able to find a competitive setting at the famous American venue and Saturday concluded with Capirossi and his colleague Chris Vermeulen qualifying 11th and 14th respectively, only for things to get worse when the race started.

In incident on the second corner saw both Rizla Suzuki riders run off track, with Capirossi running in 14th place at the end of lap one, but the 36 year-old battled back brilliantly over the subsequent 27 laps to eventually finish seventh.

“The final position is not too bad, but I am disappointed with my start because it was not very good and on turn two I was involved in a big mess with some other bikes! I kept up a good pace and I overtook a lot of guys, I had a good rhythm throughout the race and if I'd had that rhythm without the incident early on and the bad start I think I could have challenged for a top five place.”

“I want to thank all my guys for another good job this weekend and they are all working hard to discover the best performance for the new chassis, I already think it is a lot better than the old one, but we still don't know its full potential. We got good data from the race and it was a better result than the grid position, but we expect more and we will be pushing hard in Misano!”