Pain in the neck for Yanagawa after crash.

Kawasaki rider Akira Yanagawa bounced back from a high-speed crash in today's final qualifying session for tomorrow's Pacific GP - and went straight out to cut almost half a second off his previous best time, on his spare machine.

The Japanese rider qualified 17th, and the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR will take its first Grand Prix start tomorrow from the fifth row of the grid.

Pain in the neck for Yanagawa after crash.

Kawasaki rider Akira Yanagawa bounced back from a high-speed crash in today's final qualifying session for tomorrow's Pacific GP - and went straight out to cut almost half a second off his previous best time, on his spare machine.

The Japanese rider qualified 17th, and the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR will take its first Grand Prix start tomorrow from the fifth row of the grid.

The all-new MotoGP prototype made its public debut yesterday, in the first of two days of practice for the race at the 4,801-metre Motegi circuit. Prior to that, the fuel-injected 990cc prototype had undergone only five days of testing since it was completed in September.

So far, it has proved already close to the pace, with only minor teething troubles.

"I had a high-speed crash in the fastest right hand corner of the track," explained Yanagawa with a wry smile. "My bike just didn't feel right, as if something was wrong with the suspension. I was sliding a lot, and when the front tucked under in this corner, it happened very suddenly, without any previous warning."

Although he walked away, the Japanese revealed that he hadn't escaped the adccident completely unharmed: "I have a pain in the neck now, but luckily I'm okay otherwise, and I was able to continue with our second bike. I still had some front end chatter with this one, but the bike felt better, and I was able to put in a hot lap in the end!"

Takashi Yasui, Staff Officer at Kawasaki R&D, revealed that even before tomorrow's race the team has gathered vital information that will see new parts ready for Malaysia.

"Our target was to qualify a little bit higher up than we actually did, but at least, we understand the negative points on our set-up," said Yasui. "We need some chassis modifications in order to get rid of the chatter problem, and are confident that we can come up with a solution very quickly - we will try our best to have the necessary parts available at the next race in Malaysia!"

The ZX-RR will take part in the final four rounds of this year's MotoGP World Championship as a wild card entry, as part of the preparation for a full-scale GP return next season - 20 years after Kawasaki's last factory entry in the top level of motorcycle racing.

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