A great start helped
John Hopkins record his best finish yet as a Kawasaki rider, with fifth place at Estoril on Sunday.
"I'm really pleased as my aim was for a top five finish today," said John. "I got a really good start and the first lap was quite frantic as I went around the outside of a few riders, before settling into a rhythm with the leading pack. There was a bit of rain to contend with in the opening laps and I made some small mistakes, which caused me to drop back a little.
"Around halfway, the grip level dropped but I raced as hard as possible as
Casey Stoner was closing the gap between us. Our main area to improve on is qualifying, as we keep giving ourselves a lot of work to do in the race by having a poor grid position. I'm looking forward to Shanghai: the Kawasaki will be better suited to it and we can hopefully achieve an even stronger result there," he added.
Shanghai will be Hopkins' 100th
MotoGP race and was the scene of his debut MotoGP podium one year ago.
Meanwhile, team-mate
Anthony West fared less well at Estoril, passing the chequered flag in a disappointing 16th position.
"What can I say about today that the result doesn't already say for me?" declared the unhappy Australian. "It would be easy to say I'm disappointed but, if I'm completely honest, the main feeling is one of intense frustration. I just can't seem to get the bike to work for me; all weekend it's felt nervous and it's constantly moving around.
"I can ride round the problems on the straights and into the turns but I'm losing massive amounts of time on the exit, where the bike feels like it's going to throw me off if I so much as touch the throttle. John doesn't seem to have the same problem, which just makes it doubly frustrating. We'll aim to find a solution during testing [on Monday], because I'm not here to run around at the back of the field," he sighed.
"We need to find the root cause of his problems, and then come up with a solution, because the current situation isn't good for him and it isn't good for Kawasaki," stated Kawasaki competition manager Michael Bartholemy.
