The opening MotoGP test of 2017 has been completed at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia with the first appearance of Suzuki’s new Factory riders, Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins; and after the positive outcome of Tuesday, Wednesday was more complicated for Team SUZUKI ECSTAR due to crashes from both riders.

First was Rins, who fell during the  morning at turn 12 because of the loss of the front-end on his GSX-RR. After a first check on-track, he was transferred to the circuit’s ‘Medical Center’ for further checks, where he complained of a lot of pain. For this reason, he was transferred to “Hospital 9 de Octubre” in Valencia for further investigation. He hasn’t suffered major injuries, but he has lesions on thoracic vertebra T8 and T12. He will now remain in hospital for further medical checks and will probably be transferred to Barcelona  for further medical checks, but his injury is likely to force the young Spaniard to take a month off.

A similar crash at the same spot affected Iannone’s performance, and he suffered pain to his right elbow. But his determination to get back to testing the new machine helped him overcome this; although his performance was not at 100%. Despite this, he completed many laps in the afternoon and gave important feedback to the engineers and his crew that will be helpful to determine the future-development of the Factory GSX-RR and preparation for next week’s test.

Team SUZUKI ECSTAR will have a private testing session at Jerez, from Wednesday to Friday, deploying Andrea Iannone and Suzuki Test Team Rider Takuya Tsuda.

Ken Kawauchi – Technical Manager:

“Today has been a tough day, as both riders crashed, and especially Rins had some serious problems as a result, which makes us sad. Going back to yesterday, he did a positive job, he only needed to gain the confidence with his machine and he has already made some progress. Also, Iannone had a crash today, which caused some delays in our working-schedule, but luckily he didn’t suffer any major injuries.