Kawasaki find set-up to suit all riders.

The Kawasaki Racing Team completed the second and final day of testing at Spain's Catalunya circuit on Tuesday, with both riders and team technical staff declaring themselves satisfied with the progress made, particularly in finding a base set-up that suits all the teams riders.

Test rider Alex Hofmann joined Andrew Pitt and Garry McCoy for the session, where the team continued to test both chassis set-up and tyres as part of the ongoing development of the Ninja ZX-RR.

Refinement of base-line chassis settings and evaluation of a revised specification of Kawasaki's already impressive 990cc, in-line four motor were the main focus of the test.

"We've made some progress over the past two days, but the most important thing is that we've had plenty of track time, which is something we need right now," said McCoy. "With only two hours on track each day, GP weekends aren't ideally suited to testing, but we've been able to try a number of different chassis settings, which has allowed us to identify a frame and swinging arm combination that all three of us can use. It's good for now, but we'll obviously be looking to improve things further in the future."

"We've made significant progress with chassis set-up, to the point where I felt a lot more comfortable on the bike and started to regain some of my confidence in the front end," added countryman Pitt. "We've also found more traction, but I think that is as much down to the revised engine as it is the chassis improvements. The new motor accelerates faster and, more importantly, reacts a lot quicker to my input on the throttle, which makes the bike a lot easier to control both under braking and on the gas out of the turns."

"The improvements we've made during the past two days should stand us in good stead for next weekend's race at Assen," declared Hofmann.

The Catalunya test was the first to be run under the direction of Kawasaki's recently appointed technical director, Hamish Jamieson (pictured), who brings over twenty years of Grand Prix experience to the team.

"We came here with the aim of identifying a frame and swinging arm combination that all three riders are able to use and we've achieved that," stated Jamieson. "Now we have a baseline chassis set-up, information we get from individual riders will be relevant to all of them and that should go some way to speeding up the development process.

"It will certainly make things easier with chassis and suspension set-up on race weekends, as we will now be able to directly compare data collected from each bike, regardless of who the rider is," he explained.