Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128229
Gregorio Lavilla's A/stare Corona Suzuki GSX-R 1000 Gregorio Lavilla's GSX·R1000 is the lone 1000cc four in a sea of Ducatis By ALAN CATHCART PHOTO BY KEL EDGE J ust a single team in World Superbike 2003 has taken the option of racing one of the 1000cc fours fitted with 32.5mm inlet restrictors, which will increasingly form the basis of the category from next season on, while the twins that have dominated SBK for most of the past decade are still allowed to run unrestricted. This seemingly unfair handicap may explain why only the typically perspicacious Belgian-based Alstare Corona team opted to run what amounts to a development season in preparation for the new era of World Superbike in 2004, with its works GSXR1000 Suzuki, which was ridden by Gregorio Lavilla and joined on occasion by the lower-spec privateer bike of Alstare's reigning European Super- stock champion Vittorio lannuzzo - as well as at British rounds by the Rizlabacked Team Crescent bikes of John Reynolds and Yukio Kagayama, and at Laguna Seca by the Yoshimura USA machines of Mat Mladin and Aaron Yates. The fact that the latter two are regular race winners and championship points leaders in AMA Superbike this season in a class with different restrictions on four-cylinder eng ines from those at world level (primarily stock valve lifts but no restrictors), shows that Suzuki has been particularly astute in delivering tomorrow's Superbike to the racetrack today, thus getting one year's jump on everyone else even the twincylinder mafia, which in theory at least will have to learn all about restrictors for 2004. The chance to ride Lavilla's works GSX-R1000 came at Misano on the 89-degree day after the World Superbike round, when I also put in 20 laps on its greatest rival, Neil Hodgson's championship-leading 999 Ducati. A hands-on same-day comparison of the two provided some surprises, because while faster on top end and blessed with a fabulous engine that represents the peak of the desmodromic V-twin development curve, the new Ducati is a demanding and frankly difficult bike to ride hard - much more the case than its only slightly less competitive 998 predecessor and definitely more so than the Suzuki. Whodathoughtit? For after a lackluster debut at Valencia in March, the A1stare Corona Suzuki has steadily improved as the season has progressed, with Lavilla deservedly climbing onto the rostrum with third place in the second round at Phillip Island and then going one step better at the next race on Suzuki's home ground at Sugo, where he proved the worth of Alstare's own inhouse R&D facilities by twice obliterating the factory development bike of Atsushi Watanabe. In the next round at Monza, Gregorio came up short of victory by only milliseconds in both races, finishing second and third to no-nonsense Neil in spectacular fashion, powersliding around the Parabolica each lap as he fought for victory on a bike now surely overdue for a race win against the derestricted twins, which it already matches for performance - a fact which augurs well for Suzuki's chances in 2004, irrespective of what happens with the restrictors. Delivering a seriously impressive 208 bhp at the gearbox at 13,500 rpm, and an equally awesome 86.35 foot-pounds of torque at 10,000 revs, the Corona 'Suzuki is the most powerful bike ever to compete in World Superbike. But, as reflected in Mladin's SBK pole position at tortuous Laguna Seca on a machine with the same engine specification for that one race as the Alstare Corona bike, Cycle News' european editor bends Gregorio Lavilla's Alstare Corona Suzuki GSX-R 1000 into a Misano curve. The machine is the most powerful bike ever to compete In World Superbike.