From a press release issued by Suzuki:

SUZUKI TAKE A ROLLING START TO THE NEW SEASON

Team Suzuki opens the 2003 testing season next week, with five days at Sepang near Kuala Lumpur. And the MotoGP team riders Kenny Roberts Jr. and John Hopkins will have plenty of company–-with a full house of Suzuki four-stroke racers circulating the Malaysian GP circuit.

For the GP team, the first tests of the new year start an intensive programme in the run up to the first race of the 2003 season – the Japanese GP at Suzuka on April 6. This is the second championship season for the new premier MotoGP class, the 990cc four-stroke prototypes; and also for Suzuki’s booming fuel-injected V4 GP bike, the GSV-R.

2000 World Champion Kenny Roberts will be returning to the machine that he put on the rostrum at Rio last year. The new Suzuki had came to the tracks a year earlier than planned, for a season of race-development.

Since the last race, intensive development work at the factory has incorporated all the lessons learned, to upgrade every area of performance for the maturing GSV-R. Malaysia gives the experienced Roberts his first chance to assess the latest improvements.

Team-mate Hopkins, several times a production-racing champion in the USA and a top rookie on a two-stroke last MotoGP season, will be renewing the acquaintance he made with the GSV-R in tests at the same track last year, after the end of his impressive debut MotoGP season riding a 500cc two-stroke.

The team regulars will be joined by Suzuki factory race-department tester Kosuko Akioshi.

The MotoGP machine they will test is still an interim prototype – built around last year’s successful machine, but with revisions throughout.

“We have a a long list and full test schedule for all the new components, from chassis, suspension and tyres to different engine characteristics and other details,” said team manager Garry Taylor.

“With several alternatives in all areas, and any number of combinations to try, we’re scheduled to test from Monday to Friday. That’s probably more time than we need, but you need to make allowances for the weather out there.

“It’s part of out continuous development schedule – a step along the way, rather than the final version that we expect to race,” added Taylor. “That will continue to evolve in the coming months.”

The MotoGP squad will be joined on track also by World and US factory-backed Superbike teams.

Spanish rider Gregorio Lavilla will be testing the latest GSX-R Superbike, in preparation for the 12-race season that starts in Spain on March 2.

The California-based US Yoshimura Suzuki team are also testing at Sepang. Former triple champion Mat Mladin and team-mates Aaron Yates and new recruit Ben Spies will be testing their AMA Superbike Suzuki GSX-R machines for the forthcoming season.

The MotoGP team has further tests scheduled at Phillip Island in Australia in the first week of February, before starting a programme of Spanish tests at the end of that month.