Forward Racing Continues Progression with Vermeulen

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The development of the Suter-BMW from the NGM Mobile Forward Racing Team on the Bugatti circuit at Le Mans continued in a positive direction even in bad weather conditions.

Chris Vermeulen, rider of choice to substitute Colin Edwards, has been hard at work to find the right setup for the bike. The Australian rider managed to achieve a fast lap in 1´38.658, at only one tenth of Mattia Pasini, who will be right before him on tomorrow’s starting grid and faster by seven tenths according from the best time from Friday.

Tomorrow the rain could be yet again a determining factor for tomorrow’s French GP but the NGM Mobile Forward Racing Team is ready for the race that will begin at 14:00 local time.

 Chris Vermeulen – 21st (1´38.658)

 “It was great to get out with the bike for the second time today, for the second day it felt more comfortable, I felt at home straight away. This morning we struggled a lot and in the end we found out what was causing it and finally made a big step with the bike, we kind of lost a lot of time this morning which was unfortunate and this afternoon the weather conditions was a bit mixed. I don’t know the bike well, I’m not 100% comfortable with it yet obviously and I just took my time. We got some dry time at the end of the session, just kept the set of tires and we got faster and faster, and more information with the bike. I think now we have a good idea on some changes, we’ve tried a lot of things and hopefully a direction ahead to make a reasonable bike to start the race. “

 Kornelis Veldeman – Crew Chief

 “Today we did improved but because of the weather conditions we couldn’t improve as much as we had hoped. In the end we improved of a second compared to yesterday’s lap times we were aiming for two seconds but because of having half of the session with rain it wasn’t possible. On the other had it was good for Chris to do some laps in wet conditions. Overall we improved, we improved on the electronics side even if position wise we didn’t and it’s a shame.

The major modification today was on the electronics: to have more engine break in mid corner, less engine break on the straight and of course traction control.  We have to keep in mind that we are working with new electronics and we need some time to work on it.”

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Difficult qualifying session at Jerez for NGM Mobile Forward Racing Team

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After three free practice sessions in the rain, during the qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix, the sun made an appearance while leaving the track wet. After having worked all weekend long on a setup for rain for the Suter-BMW bike, the team NGM Mobile Forward Racing ad Colin Edwards have been constrained to readapt the bike according to the data from the March winter test.

The first half of the session has not been completely negative for Edwards up until the crash, when the American rider lost control of his prototype bike and had to be taken back by scooter to the pits. The lost time and the wet/dry conditions have forced the Texan rider to have to redouble the efforts at tomorrow’s warm up.

Colin Edwards

“We first went out in the morning and the wet patches conditions were atrocious. I saw the rain cloud coming and I tried to stick in a lap, maybe a little bit too risky and went into turn one, hit a wet patch and the rear end came around and spit me off the bike. Luckily I got off pretty gentle, came back to the pit and got on the second bike. Which when we went out this morning, I said that something felt a little bit different with the throttle control, electronics. We then went out and had some major issues, but we still tried to get going. The bike setting, the electronics and chatter were a big problem on the second bike. The first bike felt pretty good, we will get it back together and I’m sure that the one we will race tomorrow.”      

Kornelis Veldeman – Crew Chief

“Mainly the problem is that we struggle with this circumstances, we have to find the right setting for the bike in the rain and it hasn’t been easy. We have had issues with the electronics, especially in these circumstances it is very sensitive and we miss the little bit of experience at the moment to solve this problems. The first outing with bike 1, he crashed due to a wet spot and luckily it was not a bad crash but still needed to continue the session with bike 2. On bike 2 the problem was the electronics, they didn’t work as expected and we were unable to improve our lap time. For tomorrow morning we will go out to the warm up with the bike 1 setting and be ready for the race in the afternoon.”

Marco Curioni – Managing Director

We are suffering the consequences of being early stages of development of our bike. We were aware of the fact that we would encounter difficulties here at Jerez and we have done very few tests in rain conditions. Obviously the crash did not help given that the second bike already had problems in terms of the electronics. We will work to solve these problems and to prepare a good setup and I stress the fact that we are currently suffering the consequences of the lack of experience, working wise, with the bike.

NGM Forward Racing Press Release

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