TESTING TIMES FOR KAWASAKI IN MUGELLO QUALIFYING
The Mugello circuit has proven to be a tough challenge during
today’s qualifying for Kawasaki’s John Hopkins
and Anthony West, who finished with 14th and 19th positions
on the grid.
Following yesterday’s rain hampered practice sessions,
there was a break in the clouds and the weather had somewhat
improved for today’s proceedings. Hopkins used the morning
session to find a workable setting around the demanding 5.245km
Tuscany circuit, finishing provisionally on the third row
of the grid.
However, the afternoon qualifying stint brought no joy for
the 25-year-old Anglo-American, leaving him in a frustrating
14th place. Hopkins knows he has his work cut-out tomorrow,
but remains determined to achieve a strong result aboard his
Ninja ZX-RR.
Despite slashing his lap time on each qualifying run, knocking
nearly half a second off his best time in his last outing
on super-soft qualifying rubber, West will start tomorrow’s
race from 19th position.
After making alterations to the set-up of his Kawasaki to
reduce the rear-traction issues that has thwarted his progress
in previous rounds, the 26-year-old found himself with a lack
of feeling from the machine's front end. West is extremely
dissatisfied as yesterday’s outing on slick tyres looked
promising for the Australian. Overnight he will work with
his crew to find a solution to these issues, particularly
for the off-camber, downhill sections of the circuit.
Both Kawasaki riders will be aiming to further improve their
set-up during morning warm-up ahead of tomorrow’s 23-lap
race.
John Hopkins
#21: 14th - 1'49.601
“Today has felt like an uphill struggle for us. We had
a few problems transitioning to a dry set-up in this morning’s
practice session, after the two wet sessions yesterday. But
we persisted on refining the set-up, as well as working closely
with Bridgestone to find a suitable tyre combination for the
race. In qualifying it just didn’t come together for
us, which has left us with a less than ideal grid position.
It’s going to be incredibly important to get a good
start in the race if I'm to claw back some points tomorrow."
Anthony West
#13: 19th - 1'50.889
“Yesterday felt good in the dry and to end up at the
back of the grid after today’s qualifying is very frustrating.
We have been trying many different ideas to improve the rear-traction
of the machine, as I have been struggling to get out of the
corners at previous rounds. This track is particularly tricky,
especially the downhill, off-camber sections, but today we
found ourselves with no front-end feeling and I just couldn’t
push the bike into the turns. I did manage to improve my lap
time on each qualifying run, and our race set-up isn’t
so far off, I just hope we can gain a solid result tomorrow.”
Naoya Kaneko
Kawasaki Technical Manager
“Today has been difficult for both riders. We have been
working with Anthony to reduce the rear-traction issues he’s
encountered, but this has now compromised the front-end feeling
of the machine. He has been gaining confidence on the bike
throughout the sessions, but it just isn’t enough at
the moment to be further up the field. With John, today has
been a challenge to find a good dry set-up and we need to
work overnight to improve the situation for the race tomorrow.”
1. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha 1'48.130; 2. Dani Pedrosa
(SPA) Repsol Honda Team +0.167; 3. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP +0.183; 4. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro
Team +0.245; 5. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha +0.253;
6. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda Team +0.536; 7. Jorge Lorenzo
(SPA) Fiat Yamaha +0.775; 8. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha
+0.895; 9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini +0.965;
10. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini +1.015;
14. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing Team +1.471; 19. Anthony
West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing Team +2.759
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