Team Suzuki dominates around the globe.

Team Suzuzki is celebrating one of its most successful years of competitive bike racing after winning a host of world and national championships in 2001.

Whether on track or off-road, Team Suzuki has been competitive in every racing discipline it entered in 2001, capped with winning two World titles. Mickael Pichon took 10 victories on his way to winning the World 250 Motocross championship in convincing style, while the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team won the endurance Super Production World Cup on the new GSX-R1000. The GSX-R1000 totally dominated the World Endurance Championship in 2001, taking seven out of eight victories in the process.

The awesome GSX-R1000 has scored success in national championships around the world as well. In Australia Shawn Giles, the reigning Champion, moved up from a GSX-R750 to a GSX-R1000 to retain the Superbike title, recording an impressive nine straight wins in a row during the season. James Ellison won the European Superstock Championship from a host of other GSX-R1000 riders and Suzuki also scored its first ever AMA Formula Extreme Championship title in America with 18-year-old John Hopkins riding a 1000cc GSX-R.

In the All-Japan series, Keiichi Kitigawa won the production based Super Naked class with seven wins and two second places out of nine starts. The success of the one-litre Suzuki was further underpinned in the UK where Paul Young won the British Superstock title with considerable ease.

The GSX-R750 proved its racing pedigree in the USA where Mat Mladin took his third consecutive title on the Suzuki and notched up another Daytona 200 victory. In Japan, Akira Ryo won the all-Japan Superbike Championship with three victories , one second and two third place finishes. Team Suzuki Alstare was up against tough competition in the World Superbike Championship but still managed to take a victory and several podium finishes with its GSX-R750 in the capable hands of Italian Pierfrancesco Chili.

In Britain the GSX-R600 won the hotly contested British Supersport Championship with Karl Harris piloting the bike. He dominated the season, winning six of the 13 races and rarely finishing off the podium.

In the competitive world of off-road racing in the USA, Team Suzuki rider Rodney Smith took his third AMA GNCC Championship riding the RM250. In the World Off Road Championship Series, Suzuki DRZ400 rider Mike Kiedrowski is leading the series from Suzuki teammates Steve Hatch and Rodney Smith who are tied in second place with one race left to run. Travis Pastrana won the East 125cc SX series and also won several races in the AMA 125cc National Motocross Championship onboard an RM125 before being sidelined by an injury. His Suzuki team-mate Kevin Windham on the RM250 finished second in the 250cc AMA National Motocross Championship and fourth in the AMA Supercross series.

In the blue-riband Road Racing 500cc World Championship, Team Telefonica MoviStar Suzuki took a well earned victory at the Valencia GP in September, with Spanish rider Sete Gibernau beating the field to take his first-ever win riding the RGV-r. At the same race, his teammate Kenny Roberts Jr finished third to carpet the podium with Suzuki colours.

In all aspects of racing Suzuki has enjoyed a vintage year of success in 2001 and is looking forward to next year with enthusiasm as it continues to develop its highly competitive range of race bikes.