Both bikes still liked to wheelie quite a bit but not as much as the old 990 did. It was pretty apparent that neither Suzuki had the antiwheelie control switched on. (When I asked Hopkins about his usage of the system his reply was, "This is the kind of wheelie prevention I go for," as he tapped his toe on the rear brake pedal. "The electronic kind just holds you back.") Both Suzukis felt stable and secure on the brakes, though, while acceptably planted in turns in the same way their 990 predecessors were. It's uncanny how similar the 880 is to the 990, and it's pretty obvious that Suzuki treated the final season of the 990cc MotoGP as a development exercise for the 800; the way the GSV-R800 proved competitive from the very start was the payoff.
Another area where the Suzuki follows its former 990cc guise is in corner speed. A combination of the weight transfer delivered under braking by a bike that's quite a bit taller than the Ducati but not as stilt-like as the Rossi Yamaha-plus Bridgestone's great front tire and the GSV-R's sweet-steering chassis package-all together encourage you to brake later and keep up momentum in Valencia's more sweeping turns. But just as a year ago on the 990, the Brembo radial carbon brakes on the GSV-R800 felt a little soft compared with the other two bikes I'd been riding that day fitted with the outwardly similar hardware. "It's just the same as last year-we both have the brakes set up like that deliberately," Vermeulen confirms. "My style is to do a lot of trail-braking into turns, and I don't like the brakes to be too fierce because I like to brake while I'm already leaned over in turns quite a bit. If it's too snappy then it's too easy to lose the front. That's why I have it set up that way." And in Hopper's case, as a reformed AMA Formula Xtreme unlimited literbike star he likes to use more engine braking than other riders, so he also eschews ultraresponsive front brakes in keeping the bike balanced in turns.
Balance. That's the key word for the GSV-R800 Suzuki. It's a balanced package that feels completely predictable in the way it responds to rider input, both in terms of handling and engine performance. OK, it's not the fastest bike out there in a straight line, but it's certainly one of the most manageable and effective-without the sense of excessive use of electronics. For me the Suzuki was the most enjoyable to ride without significantly lacking performance to achieve it. It's just that final step the bike needs to become a regular contender for top honors, and Rizla Suzuki team manager Paul Denning believes Suzuki's engineers are quite capable of bridging that ever-decreasing gap. "As the smallest of the major race departments, Suzuki needs to build momentum to compete with Honda and Yamaha and beat them," Denning says. "Because of their resources it tends to go in cycles, and Suzuki is very much on the upswing right now. The engineers have come up with a significant new technical ingredient for 2008 which they believe will make the difference between fourth place and first, in both races and championship. Nobby [Aoki, Suzuki MotoGP's test rider] rode next year's bike at Sepang and lapped faster on it than our two regular riders on the current machine, so it seems to be a definite step forward. We're very excited about what's coming next, and we believe this year's bike provides an exceptional basis to move forward from."