Winter time is when the engineers’ work 5becomes even more intense, as they have to wrap-up all the flndings from the previous season and rush to develop the best developments for the next one in order to be ready for the Sepang test - at the beginning of February 2020 - before debuting the package at the first race, the GP of Qatar. All this is in the hands of Ken Kawauchi, the Technical Manager of Team SUZUKI ECSTAR. Here he shares some of his thoughts and focuses for this winter’s work.“The 2019 season was a positive one for us, because we reached our target. Be-fore the beginning of the season we set a goal of winning at least one race, and the victory TEAM SUZUKI RACING NEWSin Austin arrived even earlier than expected! We then got the podium in Jerez, and finally another win in Silverstone. We have been consistently close to the podium the whole season, but then after Great Britain we struggled more and more as the competitors were improving, and finally we couldn’t take any more podiums, which is somehow disappointing. However, I would rate our season 8 out of 10. It was really quite good. But we do need to become more consistent next year, and ffght for the podium at every race.”After the conclusion of the season in Valencia, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR carried out successful tests in both Valencia and Jerez: “our main target was to thoroughly test the new spec. engine and be sure of its eficiency and the right way to proceed. The engine is the core of the bike, so we will develop and finalise the chassis, fairing, and the other items later. Of course, our test rider Sylvain Guintoli had already test-ed the engine and given good feedback, but we needed the feedback from the fac-tory riders as well, as it’s them who will ultimately race the GSX-RR. The outcome was positive; both Alex and Joan liked it, so we can be happy with this starting point. We will finalise some aspects and develop some new electronics around it, and for Sepang in February, we will hopefully bring some improvements for the chassis (maybe still at prototyping level) and some new cowlings.”After a season in the spotlight, with two victories and Rins finishing up fourth in the championship, Kawauchi’s idea on where SUZUKI stands is pretty clear. “At the moment we have a very good base, which has allowed us some good results, but my feeling is that we are still too heavily afiected by the difierences in the layout of the tracks and also the weather conditions. In terms of pure performance, we can say that we are now very close to the competitors, but probably they sufier less than us in changing conditions. We will work on consistency, to flnd some strate-gies and solutions that allow us to be less sensitive to the variations and more consistent.”Finally, some words to sum up the riders and team: “We can say that we’re happy with our line-up. Alex got podiums and can now be considered a top rider, while Joan grew a lot during his first year and has already shown good potential. The team also work very well together - we are all very cooperative and efficient, I have to thank them for their hard work. We are expecting our competitors to become even stronger in 2020, so we have to work hard over this winter in order to be absolutely ready for the season opener in Qatar!”2019 Winter Issue“I’d rank us 8 out of 10 this year!”Team SUZUKI ECSTAR MotoGPTeam SUZUKI ECSTAR Technical Manager Ken Kawauchi reflects on 2019 and also to the hard winter work ahead at the Suzuki factory in Japan ready for the 2020 Mo-toGP™ season.KAWAUCHIBLOGKEN
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