Ray saves the day for Suzuki
British Superbike race winner Bradley Ray made a big impression at the Suzuka 8-hour race by saving the day for his factory-backed Yoshimura Suzuki team in front of the factory’s top Japanese bosses.
After running in the top four places all weekend, the Suzuki squad tumbled off the leaderboard following a crash by Sylvain Guintoli. But Ray then pulled the team back into the top ten by impressing with a series of fast laps towards the end of the race in terribly tricky conditions. And Ray knows just how important that tenth-place finish could be as he considers his options for 2019.
“It would have been nice to get on the podium,” he told MCN. “But when you think about eight hours on track, one little mistake is completely acceptable and you’ve got to take the positives out of the situation, The interest from Suzuki is a massive thing. Having the MotoGP team boss telling me I did a good job can’t be a bad thing and he was even helping me out with my kit before sessions. That has got to be good for the future.” And while Guintoli might have ended any chance of greater success, the veteran Frenchman admitted that the team’s chance of winning was outside their grasp anyway.
“The crash was my mistake but it was also bad luck,” he said. "I found myself alongside a backmarker on the exit of the hairpin and he just ran me out of the track and I had nowhere to go but into the wall. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the Frenchman added: “We could have done better. We didn’t have the pace to win, but with Kawasaki’s problems maybe we could have been on the podium. But that’s endurance racing for you.”
‘The MotoGP boss telling me I did a good job can’t be bad’