SUZUKI MXGP ATTENTION TURNS TO ‘UNKNOWN’ INDONESIA

2017-03-01 07:53
After the familiarity of the Losail circuit in Qatar, the Suzuki World MXGP squad has now headed east to Indonesia in what is a bit of an unknown quantity for everyone involved. Pangkal Pinang is the largest town on the island of Bangka which is approximately a one hour flight north of Jakarta but that is all anyone really seemed to know about the destination or the track when speaking to the team members about the weekend.

“It’s going to be a new track, a new location, we don’t know what to expect from the weather and how the track will be and what kind of dirt we are going to have so it’s always interesting to go to new locations. Expectations would be tough to say at this moment, they say it could be a bit sandy which would good for our riders and we shall try to be well prepared, I hear there is a lot of rain, some say it’s hot, others say it isn’t too hot. I don’t worry too much about it, I just go there and see. We want to try for a better result in both classes and to keep working hard,” commented General Manager Stefan Everts.

His sentiments were echoed by all the members of the squad: “I have no idea what to expect, but it’s the same for everybody. They say it’s raining a lot and I hope they do a good job with the track. We are just going to go there with a positive mind and try to score a lot more points than in Qatar,” said MXGP rider Kevin Strijbos. MX2 rider Jeremy Seewer also wanted a vast improvement from his results at Losail. He said: “I’ve never even seen a photo of the track, so we shall see, I just want to do better than how we did this last weekend and improve the points situation.”

Bas Vaessen tried to educate himself a little about what Indonesia is like: “I’ve been watching the country on the Discovery channel quite a few times but I really don’t know what to expect. I’ve also been checking the weather channel for the past three weeks and I think it’s their rainy season, I’ve not seen anything other than rain, so it could be a disaster or it could amazing, I just don’t know.”

Australian Hunter Lawrence hoped it would be a little closer to his home country but isn’t afraid of a little rain or heat: “I think it’s been raining quite a bit so mud is always fun and interesting. Being an Aussie, heat normally isn’t an issue for us but I’ve been in Europe for quite some time and it’s not so warm in Holland and Belgium coming straight from winter time. I have no idea how I’ll go but hopefully I’ll be alright.”

The last member of squad, Arminas Jasikonis, has now arrived in Indonesia after missing Qatar with visa issues and the tall Lithuanian can’t wait to get on the track, whatever the conditions may be: “It’s been a big disappointment for me and it’s been really tough these past few days and to watch the guys racing without me, but I still watched to support the guys. The whole situation has given me a lot of motivation and to make me work harder for it so while there are bad times, there are good times after it and I’m really excited for the weekend to show what I can do.”

That attitude is one shared by the whole Suzuki World MXGP team, who will be desperate to put on a good showing after their performances at the Losail track in Qatar that really didn’t represent their true talents. Whatever the track conditions and whatever the weather, look for a lot more Suzukis near the head of the field when the action gets underway at the MXGP of Indonesia, which returns to the usual Saturday/ Sunday schedule

Source: Team Suzuki Press Office

Click here to visit our forums to discuss this story