Aleix Espargaro 10th, Maverick Viñales 11th at Sachsenring

The GP of Germany ended spectacularly today with both Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales fighting with each other in the final laps and finally finishing a close 10th and 11th place at the flag.

The race itself was a great show for the fans, with many riders fighting for positions in the middle of the pack; and with the Team SUZUKI ECSTAR riders well-up in the battle.

The overall performance of the Factory GSX-RRs has constantly improved during the whole weekend, although it has been a pretty hard three-days for the team’s engineers and mechanics to find the most-effective set-up on both bikes.

At the start, both Espargaro and Viñales had some trouble keeping their starting positions (7th and 12th) and entered the first corner having lost some places, so both Spaniards needed to recover.

Espargaro immediately hit the gas to regain some places, while Viñales took a little more time to find an effective race-pace. At mid-race their fight together was settled around 10th place and their battle together became closer, lap-after-lap, until in the closing stages of the race, with the younger rider being closer to more experienced Espargaro.

During the final two laps they fought hard with some overtaking moves, until the last corner where Espargaro won over Viñales, taking 10th position and 11th place going to his younger team-mate.

The weekend gave important data to Suzuki engineers about the areas which are most important to focus-on before the next round. The first chance to test this will be this week with a two-day private test session at Misano in Italy on Wednesday and Thursday.

Aleix Espargaro:
“I am sorry for the weekend because for the entire three days we couldn’t find a proper set-up. I felt very uncomfortable with the front in slow corners and we couldn’t find a proper way to improve. In the race, at the end, I’m happy I hit the top-10; it is important to think of the points, because I took many risks and I had to think about the championship and, most of all, the development process. We will go into Misano after this weekend and we will test as much as possible, with Tom – the Chief Technician. We already have some ideas about where to work on. Indy will not be easy for us and also the second half of the season we need to make a big step forward.”

Maverick Viñales:
“Well at the end I really enjoyed fighting with Aleix. I’m proud to be so close to him because he is my point of reference as he has the same machine and a lot more experience and even though I would have preferred to be ahead of him, at the end of the day the real thing is that we both would like to be fighting with other riders at the top rather than with each other. In the race I felt the very same problems I’ve encountered the whole weekend; a bad feeling with the rear and a lack in acceleration due to a lot of spin. This was a problem at such a tight circuit as Sachsenring as it has so many slow corners and we definitely need to improve on this. I’m positive for the test we will do in the week and I trust my engineers can find some solutions to develop the bike still further so we can be more competitive after the summer break.”

Source: Suzuki Racing