Randy de Puniet’s DNF during his home race at Le Mans left a bitter taste in the French rider’s mouth, but he’ll soon put that behind him as he officially confirmed with the MotoGP.
com website that he’ll be testing Suzuki’s new MotoGP machine at Motegi this week.
“Yeah we leave tomorrow to Japan to test with Suzuki in Motegi, and it’s good for me because I will forget very quickly the race from today and I think it will be good for Mugello.
I will be ready to be fast immediately.
That is a good experience for me how to do a great job and I really hope to come back to Mugello for a good race,” said de Puniet.
Speculation over the last few months have tied the French rider to Suzuki’s comeback and this is the first time that it has been officially confirmed that he’ll be testing the new machine (with the permission of Aspar Martinez).
Suzuki’s new prototype has completely new engine and chassis that was confirmed by Nobuatsu Aoki and partially confirmed by Cycle World’s photos.
The Japanese manufacturer will almost certainly make their European debut at Barcelona on June 17th, when they’ll confront their machine against the current MotoGP prototypes during Monday’s post-race test at the Spanish track and under the scrutiny of very curious journalists, and apparently they will also test the day after before moving on to Aragon for more shakedown testing.
Nobuatsu Aoki will be one of the two test riders but it is unkown if de Puniet will be the second during the June tests or if it will another Suzuki ride Takuya Tsuda.
By that time we should also know if the rumors that Davide Brivio will be running the team are true as it seems that he has already resigned from his current position with Valentino Rossi’s VR/46 company to take on this new challenge.