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2015.10.2
Round 5 of ARRC opens in Qatar for Team KAGAYAMA SUZUKI Asia
The round 5 of FIM Asia Road Racing Championship opened today at the Losail International Circuit, located just outside of Doha, Qatar.
The almost all-flat 5.38km circuit has 16 turns and is also a venue for the MotoGP World Championship. It has lighting facilities, which allows race to be held after dark, to escape from the heat during the day. This is the only race in the Championship where night race is held.
Team KAGAYAMA SUZUKI Asia is a new team this year, formed by General Manager, Yukio Kagayama. It has entered two riders in the Supersports 600 category of the Championship with #25 Rafid Topan Sucipto (Indonesia) and #41 Noriyuki Haga (Japan). Although in its first season, the team has proved its capability when Haga finished on the podium in their 3rd outing.
The circuit is not new to both Topan who has raced in Moto2 and Haga who has raced in World Superbike Championship, which is a plus to a team in its first season. Day 1 became a busy day for the team, as three practice sessions took place.
Free Practice 1 started at 3:30p.m. with the sun still shining brightly on the track. Haga recorded a 2’08.065 and placed himself in 8th, while Topan recorded a 2’08.604 and placed himself in 10th. Free Practice 2 started after the sun went down at 6:40 p.m. and Free Practice 3 at 10:05 p.m. Topan showed improvement in his laptime in each session, finishing 14th in FP2 with 2’07.823, and finishing 8th in FP3 with 2’06.580. Haga suffered from heavy chattering and finished both sessions in 15th with a time of 2’07.859 in FP1 and 2’07.311 in FP2.
Rafid Topan Sucipto | #25
“I haven’t raced year since 2013, and this was my first time here on a SUZUKI, but I managed to improve my laptime, and I feel good about it. I still need to work on my setting, but we still have time tomorrow, so I believe we will further improve. I wasn’t able to race at my best in the last 2 rounds, so I hope that I can show my supporters a better race this weekend.”Noriyuki Haga | #41
“I was hoping to further improve my set-up from Buriram, but I used the time trying to fix the chattering I had. Fortunately, we were able to find the reason to the chattering in FP3, so I plan to solve the problem tomorrow, and hope to find the best set-up for the race.”Yuichi Takeda | Team Manager
“Since we are new here, we do not have any data, so we made the riders suffer a little at start. Topan’s rhythm is much better than his last two rounds, so we can expect more from him tomorrow. Haga had a problem with heavy chattering, and it took time to find the reason. If we can solve the problem tomorrow, then he should be up in the front. Both riders have experience here, so I hope they can help the SUZUKI GSX-R1000 go faster.”
