The Forward Racing Team completed the second of four winter test

The second round of testing at Jerez de la Frontera finishes today for the Forward Racing Team. In these days, Eric Granado and Stefano Manzi, have focused on the search for the feeling and the development of their new Suter MMX2. The Brazilian rider Granado, ended the day with a good 1:43.058 that is worth the 27th position in the ranking of times, making a total of 150 laps. In his turn the young Italian rider stopped the time trial at 1:43.967, at only 9 tenths away from his teammate and with 160 laps completed. The checkered flag concludes the first two weeks of winter testing in 2018, and the whole team is now ready to go home, waiting for the next test to be held on 26 and 27 February, again in Valencia.

Stefano Manzi -  STEFANO MANZI "Obviously this isn’t the beginning of the tests that I imagined, specially for the positive feedback we had in November on this track and with this bike. Unfortunately, I immediately accused physical problems that have compromised my performance. From the very first day I had a hard time climbing the marches because of the strong cramps in the tibial area and the inflammation of the tendons of the foot. We managed to do only short trips in order not to risk aggravating my physical situation then compromising the next tests. However, we’ve been able to try a part of what we had planned and we will use the information collected to continue our preparation for Qatar. We will return to the track stronger than before ".

Eric Granado -  "It's the first time I have faced three consecutive days of testing and, all things considered, I feel quite satisfied. In the first day I needed to understand how the bike works on this circuit and, with my guys, we laid the foundations to understand how to work best on the Suter chassis. The second day I made a lot of laps and tried different setups to understand a little more about how my MMX2 works, which is very particular compared to the one I had before. Today, however, we made significant changes to find the right way here at the Jerez circuit, which is certainly very different from Valencia. The world championship is certainly tough: you improve, but all others also improve, and in my case, even if I have a good time, the final result shows that we still have a lot of work. However, that’s only the second test and there are two more before Qatar. In my opinion we are on the right way. We are working well and we are very focused to get to the first race of the season prepared and with the bike at its best. We just have to be patience and continue to give the maximum. I am sure that with the Forward team we will be able to achieve great results ".

Giovanni Cuzari - Team Owner ""I can't hide that in effect the result of this IRTA test doesn’t seem very satisfaying, but we managed to complete an intensive work program with Eric, who completed more than 150 laps. We are really happy with his approach both on the track and with the team. Compared to November, when he first tested the Suter MMX2, Eric has lowered his best lap time by over half a second, which makes us very confident about the future. As for Stefano, we struggled to find him a comfortable driving position, because after just a few laps he complained of cramps in the tibial zone; this has hindered him a lot in the gear change. Unfortunately, this problem has only occurred now, as on this track the change is often used, more than to a circuit like Valencia. On the other hand we are very busy on the selection of the materials to use during the season; a decidedly challenging job to do with two young guys. However, we go back home with a lot of informations that we will analyze before the next test, to continue our growth with this fantastic bike that has a lot to discover".