From a press release issued by Mat Mladin Motorsports:

MLADIN COMPLETES FIRST TEST ABOARD NEW 2005 SUZUKI GSX-R1000 IN MALAYSIA

Five times American Superbike champion Mat Mladin has completed his first test session aboard the all-new 2005 model Suzuki GSX-R1000 that he hopes will take him to a sixth Superbike crown in America next year.

Returning to Australia over the weekend, Mladin, his Yoshimura Suzuki crew and teammate Aaron Yates spent a gruelling three-days at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia last week putting the latest version GSX-R1000 Superbike through a myriad of tests.

By contrast to recent years where the American Superbike team shared the track with other Suzuki supported teams such as the factory MotoGP team, last week’s test saw them there alone.

Mladin has been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to ride the latest offering from Suzuki and come away from the test full of praise for the work that has been done by the factory in readiness for 2005.

“Suzuki have made some very strong improvements with the motorcycle and the whole package presents itself with something that we can work straight away,” said Mladin.

“It’s very promising after the first test. It was hard to compare lap times with what we have done there previously as it rain each night we were there, so the track was ‘green’ each time we went out in the morning. We had one of our ’04 models that we rode this year to compare it with and it stacked up very well. Grip was an issue for us under those conditions, but we had a few things to compare the performance with.”

“Dunlop were there in full force as well. They had a full range of tyres to test and are working very hard towards next year.”

There has been very little time for the team to prepare for the test after the rescheduling of the final round of this year’s American Superbike Championship, left them with less than a month to have the new bikes ready to ride.

“The commitment by our team for next year is highlighted by the way my crew basically landed back home at the end of the race season, dropped their families off and then headed on to Japan where they have been preparing the bikes that we used at the test over the past three weeks. A massive and totally committed effort by those guys. Everyone was keen to get going, but with this test now complete, they have been able to head back home and have a well deserved holiday, before they head back to America for our next test in early January.”

The next scheduled test appearance for Mladin and his Yoshimura Suzuki team will be the Dunlop tyre test at the revamped Daytona International Speedway, Florida on January 3 to 5, 2005.