Overnight changes help Capirossi to fifth

Incorporating a new engine into the Suzuki GSR-V this weekend at the sixth round of the season was never going to be easy for Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen, but the former used all his experience and took the advice of his Crew Chief Stuart Shenton overnight on Saturday, to go from 11th on the grid to fifth in the Barcelona race.

Although Vermeulen could only finish 11th and the Rizla Suzuki still have work to do in order to get the most out of their engine update, Capirossi is rising up the general standings round-by-round courtesy of some aggressive performances and consistent results – putting his nightmare opening race Qatar DNF blemish firmly in the past.

“This was the same position as Mugello, but this is a different one because we have worked so hard to get this and it is a great result,” said a delighted Capirossi after the race.

“It was a beautiful day today because we were struggling in practice this weekend but last night my Crew Chief Stuart came to me at 9pm and said I have an idea and we can change everything. So I decided to follow his plan. During the warmup this morning the bike felt better and I felt really good.”

Reviewing the details of the race itself Capirossi added, “I was fighting with Dani a lot. Unfortunately I lost a lot of time overtaking Dani and I lost Dovi (Andrea Dovizioso), so maybe without Dani I could maybe have fought more with Dovi and maybe Casey (Stoner) but anyway this was a really good result for us. Suzuki have come here with the new engine and it is already a little bit better so this is an improvement for us and for the future it is really important to continue to fight like this.”