Hopkins has been battling the after-effects of an accident at Phillip Island last month, which left the 24-year-old with painful muscle damage for the last two winter tests.
"I'm real excited to start the year! I feel my injury should be fine come race day as the pain has subsided a lot compared to how it was feeling a week ago," revealed the former Suzuki rider.
"We have had a restful few days, which I feel has helped it, and I have been doing small exercises to strengthen the muscles which have improved the condition dramatically. I feel good. Plus, once the adrenaline kicks in, I know I will be ready to go!
"As for the machine? I couldn't be keener," he continued. "We made some successful steps forward with race tyres and a few other parts at the test last week and I'm ready to get the first race under my belt with the Kawasaki. Fingers crossed."
Team-mate
Anthony West has faced fitness problems of a different kind, having been told to improve his overall physical condition, something the Australian believes he has achieved in time for the first race - although he remains concerned by his pace at the final pre-season test, when he was slowest of all under the Qatar floodlights.
"I'm not feeling as good as I'd like as my lap times in testing weren't what I was hoping for," admitted West, ahead of his first full season on the ZX-RR. "I'm quite concerned about the temperatures at night in Qatar as it was so cold and that affected the tyres more than I was comfortable with.
"But we still made loads of big improvements to the bike. I'm really pleased with the feeling I'm getting from the new chassis and the set up generally has really come together over the testing season. But I'm keen to get back to racing now.
"Physically, I'm feeling fit and a lot stronger so I'm ready to get on with it," Ant concluded.
"We didn't have the easiest time at the tests last week," confirmed Kawasaki competition manager Michael Bartholemy. "John's injury has obviously been an issue for us and the temperatures at the track caused some problems, too, grip-wise. Anthony in particular suffered a lack of confidence in the grip available, as it was so cold that he struggled to get the tyres up to temperature.
