Source: Supplied.

Former Superbike world champion Sylvain Guintoli’s first laps aboard the factory Team Suzuki Ecstar GSX-RR during testing at Jerez on Monday went better than expected, as the experienced Frenchman ended up 1.6s from Andrea Iannone.

Guintoli completed 37 laps during his first test alongside team regular Iannone and factory test rider Takuya Tsuda in Spain, preparing to fill-in for Spanish rookie Alex Rins at the upcoming Le Mans round.

“This day was even better than I expected,” Guintoli said. “The feeling with a MotoGP bike is something difficult to explain, it’s unique, and this Suzuki GSX-RR is just fantastic. For me today was only a few laps to understand how the bike behaves and also to try to understand the Michelin tyres, which I haven’t ridden since 2002, so quite a big time. I felt good, we managed to improve the lap time step by step and I literally can’t wait for tomorrow to keep improving the feeling and work with this fantastic bike and crew.

“The engine is so fast and so smooth, I’m impressed. Now I have also to work on my riding style because looking at the data it looks like I’m already strong in braking and acceleration, but I can improve the feeling with entrance and cornering speed. It’s pretty normal as it’s a completely different machine from the one I’m used to race, I was expecting this but honestly I was expecting also my gap from the top to be much bigger, but instead I’m not so far.”

Suzuki will stay at Jerez today for an additional day of private testing, where Guintoli will exploit some more kilometres aboard the GSX-RR and Iannone will have the chance to further test the new configurations. Tsuda will not take part in Tuesday’s test.