Hard times for Kawasaki team-mates on `the Island´

The thoughts of John Hopkins and home rider Anthony West ahead of Sunday´s racing at the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.

John Hopkins – sixteenth

`Our ultimate goal today was to find a more workable setting, particularly in the balance of the machine, as we were pushing the front going into the turns, and losing the rear on the way out. We have been trying to find a better direction and although we´ve made some improvements, they weren´t significant enough to give us a good lap time. We had a small crash this morning when I lost the front going into Honda Corner, because in the cold conditions we just didn´t have enough heat in the tyre. We need to find better turning and stability on the machine to make use of the grip available. Out of the whole lap I´m losing a lot of time at the final turn, and this is definitely the main area that needs improvement for tomorrow.´

Anthony West – eighteenth

`We made a lot of changes today to try and get more feeling from the bike, and although we found some improvement in the front-end, we haven´t made enough steps for the overall machine feedback. The bike doesn´t feel particularly stable in the turns, and on a qualifying tyre the situation is no different, because I can´t feel the grip level that´s there. This is frustrating because obviously this is my home Grand Prix and I really wanted to do well, but so far we haven´t managed to achieve the lap times we need. I´m not overly confident for tomorrow, but hopefully overnight we can find something that will make a significant difference for the race.´