Disaster strikes again for Kawasaki

After his Le Mans frustration another a technical problem caused John Hopkins to crash out of Sunday´s Gran Premio d´Italia Alice race after just seven laps, whilst his team-mate Anthony West was the last man to finish in Italy.

Anthony West - 15th

`I´m starting to sound like a stuck record now, because every time I get off the bike I´m explaining the same problem. It´s fairly simple; the rear just spins up when you get on the gas out of the turns and the bike goes sideways when it´s supposed to go forwards. This is a real, physical problem, not something that exists only in Anthony West´s head. Now I´m looking to the team for a solution, because I came to MotoGP to race, and so far this season I´ve had little opportunity to do so. Whether the team can find a solution before the next race, which is only one week away, I don´t know.´

John Hopkins - DNF

`We saw in qualifying that we were some way off the pace in race trim, so we decided to take a chance with some fairly big changes ahead of morning warm-up today. It was a gamble that paid off, because the set-up of the bike was much improved in the race. But then, just seven laps into the race the bike developed a fault with the quickshifter and I couldn´t backshift approaching turn one. With no way to scrub off speed the crash was inevitable. It was a big crash, and I count myself lucky that I managed to walk away uninjured. Obviously I´m frustrated because this is the second time in a row that a technical problem has put me out of the race. This cannot be allowed to happen again.´