WSBK » John Hopkins 'confident of closing the gap'

Barely over a 1 sec from the leader on his first race weekend and only 4 days after he first swung a leg over the bike - not bad.

And he still does the best stand up wheelies!

I think he has something for tomorrow. He achieved this on Rolfo's setting and when they tried to change set up for him, they had problems and was not able to go out on his settings - definitely not bad.

He'll be fine in a few weeks. It's foolish to expect him to show up and be at the front right away when he literally hasn't ridden a bike in nearly 4 months other than that short test a week ago.

Sounds like you guys are making early excuses for him already. He was overrated at AMA, then again at MotoGP, and he will continue to be overrated at WSB. Mark my words.

Although I must admit he does have good wheelies, maybe he should do stunts as a career instead.

Corser is the stand up wheelie king

John Hopkins is a fine rider and once he gets used to riding a bike which is about several stone heavier than the bikes he's ridden for the past 7 yrs or so i think he will go pretty well.Good luck to The Hopper.

Its stupid to focus a lot his positions for the first couple of meetings - Given the gap since he rode a similar bike you're not comparing like with like 'cos he can't be fully up to form straight off.

Look instead simply at his times and that's genuinely impressive.

If he stays smart and doesn't chuck it up the track over-reaching himself before he's fully dialed-in then having him in WSBK is going to add to the competition.

Leon Haslam now thoroughly owns Floppers a$$ 100%. He would be happy to mortgage it back but us fiscally challenged yanks would default on the repayments

As of right now the supersport ridden by crutchlow is quicker than Hopkins

OK thadynamitekid, here we go..... Crutchlows final time was 1 35.865. Sykes was the first not to make it out of Superpole 1, his time was 1 35.203. (Hopkins did make it out of Superpole 1 - THAT MEANS HE WAS FASTER THAN SYKES) By the way Biaggi, Xaus and Nakano didn't make it out of Superpole 1 either. So all-in-all not bad for a man who first rode a superbike on Monday and has never riden on Pireli tires.