Source: Supplied.

Team Suzuki Ecstar’s 2017 development strategy was struck by a pair of major falls from Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins during Valencia’s post-season test on Wednesday.

First was Rins, who fell 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 centre for further checks, where he complained of a lot of pain.

For this reason, he was transferred to hospital in Valencia for further investigation. He hasn’t suffered major injuries, but he has lesions on thoracic vertebra T8 and T12.

Rins 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.

“It was a pity to crash early today because I was eager to improve the feeling with the bike and we were following the correct work plan with the team,” Rins said. “I’m disappointed because this test was important to find out the first impressions and to get confidence with the bike, but unfortunately we can’t change what was happened.

“Now it’s time to come back home, take some rest and then think about the pre-season. I would like to thank all the Team Suzuki Ecstar members for the kindness to me during these set-up days and for all the work they did to show me the best way to kick-off in the MotoGP world.”

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 percent.

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.

“Today has been a tough day, as both riders crashed, and especially Rins had some serious problems as a result, which makes us sad,” said Suzuki MotoGP technical manager Ken Kawauchi. “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. Overall, these two days have been positive because his feeling in general about our machine is better than my concerns and we could already clearly find which areas we have to work on to improve.”

Team Suzuki Ecstar will have a private testing session at Jerez, from Wednesday to Friday, deploying Iannone and Suzuki test team rider Takuya Tsuda.