The Kawasaki Racing Team heads for this weekend's French Grand Prix at Le Mans in confident mood, with both
John Hopkins and
Anthony West determined to make amends after the disappointment of Shanghai.
The Le Mans circuit is populated with first gear corners, demanding a bike that is stable under braking, but with explosive acceleration out of the low-speed turns, and Kawasaki competition manager Michael Bartholemy believes that the current machine could be a threat this weekend.
"Our Ninja ZX-RR has been well suited to the characteristics of the Le Mans circuit in the past, so we head to France confident that we can improve significantly on our results last time out in China," he said, "I hope that John has fully recovered from the injury he sustained in the Shanghai race, while we've also got some changes to make to Anthony's bike, that I hope will eliminate the problems he's been having and allow him to start challenging for top ten positions again."
Hopkins insists that he is now fighting fit having caught the back of his knee on the foot peg after a collision with
Alex de Angelis forced him off the track in Shanghai. Although he didn't make a big deal of the injury at the time, the 24-year old Anglo-American was left with a large haematoma and, although it's not a serious injury, such soft tissue wounds can remain painful for a long time.
"My leg is completely black and blue with bruising but, while it looks quite nasty, it hasn't caused me any problems and I'm confident it won't be an issue on the bike," Hopkins, who has resumed his usual training programme, insisted.
"I'm looking forward to Le Mans, as it's a track that suits my riding style and it's one that I like racing on. The track features a lot of hard braking, quick changes of direction and hard acceleration, and that's exactly what the Ninja ZX-RR has been designed for so, when you combine this with our
Bridgestone tyres, which always seem to work well here, then I think we're in a strong position going into this weekend.
