From a press release issued by Mat Mladin’s Publicist Steve Reeves:


MLADIN PLEASED WITH MALAYSIAN SUPERBIKE TEST

Sepang, Malaysia (18 January 2003) – Rated as “It’s the most productive test that I’ve ever been involved with, it was that good” has given Australia’s Mat Mladin a major confidence boost as he prepares his new Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 for the upcoming American AMA Superbike Championship.

The comments were made after Mladin completed a very hectic four day test at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia that included his AMA Superbike teammates Aaron Yates and Ben Spies, along with Suzuki’s World Championship MotoGP (Kenny Roberts and John Hopkins) and Superbike (Gregorio Lavilla) teams. The test ran from Monday (Jan 13) to Friday (Jan 17) with the teams having the Wednesday as a rest/preparation day.

Mladin’s Yoshimura Suzuki team elected to be involved with the test after poor weather disrupted their test at Daytona in early December, with many other circuits in America not being suitable during the Winter period.

“Just to get on a good race track where you can push hard and get the most out of the bike made it a really good test,” said Mladin, who will race the Suzuki GSX-R1000 for the first time in this year’s 18-round American AMA Superbike Championship.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to test outside of America and we got so much done. In four days here we got as much done that would have taken us about ten days to achieve in America at this time of the year”, added Mladin.

“Another major benefit of the test was having all of Suzuki’s top technicians here. With the MotoGP, World Superbike and AMA Superbike teams here, they could gain a lot of information and in return we were able to get a huge amount out of it as well. Having the people who build the bikes in Japan here at the test to help make them better was great.

“The new Suzuki GSX-R1000 is working good, Suzuki have put a lot of work into the bike and we have more parts being sent back to America for our next test at Fontana on February 5 – 6 and at the moment I am looking at getting the season started.

“The weather was good, a bit tropical, but other than that we had a lot of good runs and on the final day I was able to do over 350km on the track.”

Mladin was able to post a lap time within two seconds of that set by Suzuki MotoGP rider and former World 500cc champion Kenny Roberts Jnr. Given the nature of the circuit and the top speeds achieved by the MotoGP machine, Mladin was more than pleased with his lap times and the performance of the new bike during the test.

The three times American Superbike champion returns home to Australia briefly after the test before returning to America to prepare for the team’s next test at Fontana and the start of the AMA Superbike Championship at Daytona on March 9.