Randy De Puniet managed to lap one second off Marc Marquez' pace at Motorland Aragon yesterday.
The pace of the new Suzuki's XRH-1 (GSV-R1000) MotoGP bike is quite astonishing. Rumour had it that Nobuatsu Aoki and De Puniet had only been two seconds off the pace at Motegi a couple of weeks ago - which more than one person pooh-pooh'd.
Then, in the Catalaunya paddock, more rumour said that Suzuki's bosses had put the bike's entry into MotoGP back a year because the thing was too far off the pace. Only one of those statements turned out to be true.
De Puniet has shown the thing is competitive. OK, so not over a season, but in terms of trying to keep up with Lorenzo, Pedrosa et al over the course of three testing days (which is a race weekend) he has done a stand-up job of it. Ducati struggle to do the same.
So why the delay? According to various sources, Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta's new assertions for the next brace of seasons, which will see some teams have to pay for tyres as there are only 24 contracted bikes with Bridgestone may be a reason.
Suzuki boss Satoru Terada is a little confused: "I heard that from Mr Ezpeleta, that is acceptable for us, but I didn't know at that time about tyre condition, I don't know, I have to pay for tyre, it's not sure for the moment."
Team manager Davide Brivio said Suzuki never mentioned 2015 until after their meeting with Ezpeleta but Terada said that is now set in stone and they won't be back early, or on time, if they were sticking to the original plan.