“Having no time to brood” only positive of Suzuki’s final home MotoGP race

Suzuki will bow out of the MotoGP world championship for a second time at the end of 2022, citing financial reasons and a change in market trends for its decision.

Its last home appearance at the Japanese Grand Prix proved disastrous, however, with Alex Rins retiring due to a slow puncture on his front tyre and Joan Mir’s injury replacement Takuya Tsuda’s GSX-RR bursting into flames.

Coming away with another double DNF for the fourth time in 2022, team boss Suppo says the fact it will be racing again this weekend in Thailand is the only positive to take from his sad home farewell.

“Naturally, this is not how we wanted Suzuki’s home GP to go, and not how we wanted to say goodbye to all the amazing Japanese fans,” Suppo said in a team release.

“Tsuda’s GSX-RR caught fire after a small leak, but luckily he is fine.

“Alex picked up some damage to his front wheel under hard braking on the kerbs and he had to pit in.

“The only positive is that we don’t have time to brood on today’s upsetting results, because we’ll move directly to Thailand and start focusing on that.”

Takuya Tsuda, Team Suzuki MotoGP

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Rins says his puncture came from a kerb strike on the opening lap when he was forced out wide.

“I did a good start, I recovered so many positions,” Rins said.

“But then on the starting lap, on the corner three, I was with no space and I started to brake on the exterior kerb.

“Everything was fine. But lap by lap I was losing the front, I was picking the bike up off the floor – completely losing the front.

“And then I decided to enter [into pits] because something wasn’t normal on the bike, on the tyre.

“Then in the box, on the data, they saw after four, five laps the front tyre started to lose air.

“So, it looks like it was a puncture or the rim moved. For sure it’s a disaster. We had a good pace, everybody was a little bit insecure with the tyre choice, not much time to set the bike up. It is what it is.

“It’s the last time here for Suzuki. Also Tsuda was literally on fire. But it is what is.”

A similar kerb strike incident forced Enea Bastianini out of the Austrian GP in August after he suffered damage to his front wheel rim.