Hopkins: 'I had to ride a bit like a maniac'
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Monday, 27 March 2006 |
John Hopkins was one of several riders to get caught up in Valentino Rossi's first corner fall yesterday which undid a lot of the benefit of a good start. As the race continued, the Anglo-American suffered from arm pump which slowed his progress. Teammate Chris Vermeulen came a respectable 12th in his first race as a full-time MotoGP rider.
Chris Vermeulen"I got a bad start and then got baulked by the crash. So I had to try and get through the field to get a better place. I think some of today may be a bit of inexperience and we really need to spend more time with the race tyres and set up. I have now got some points from the first round with a 12th place - which is not too bad really - and as long as we can keep improving I'll be happy."  John Hopkins
"I wouldn't say I'm exactly satisfied with my race. I got off to an unbelievable start and then got caught up in the mess on the first corner - I came within inches of running Rossi over but fortunately I missed him. I lost a lot of positions and had to ride a bit like a maniac to cut through the field. I made my way through and I was up with the top six when I started to get arm pump in my right arm. I've never had it before on a MotoGP bike and I don't know where it came from. It ruined my race really because I am confident I could have got past the two riders in front of me - but that's racing! We have just got to move on to the next race at Qatar and take the best bits from this weekend forward with us." Paul Denning - Team Manager"I felt before the race that if we could get one bike in the top 10 and the other in the points that it would be a good result at this circuit. The result itself is not good enough but we have to take some positive pointers from this weekend in terms of comparison to where we were 12 months ago at the same track. There are still some issues to resolve and Suzuki is focussed really hard on using this start point as a positive and refining the new Rizla Suzuki GSV-R to a point whereby we can take the next step. "John is bitterly disappointed because he felt that a top six finish was well within his grasp and Chris is also frustrated, but neither of them should be as I believe that both riders and their crews got the full potential out of the package available to them this weekend. I feel that we can certainly look forward to more positive things in the future."
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