Hopkins bemoans lost track time at Misano

John Hopkins, who was ruled out of both of Friday´s practice runs due to aggravating an injury to one of his intercostal muscles, suffered with front-end difficulties aboard his Ninja ZX-RR throughout both of Saturday´s Misano sessions.

Despite qualifying in seventeenth position, Hopkins is confident that he, along with his crew, can make further adjustments in warm-up, which will put him in a stronger position for the race.

On the other side of the pit-box Anthony West made radical changes to the set-up of his 800cc Kawasaki to improve the feedback from the front of the bike, but this brought no real joy, leaving him in eighteenth position on the grid.

John Hopkins – seventeenth

`It´s been a real task today as we´ve been on the back foot because I had to sit out practice yesterday. My rib injury is definitely improving and I feel much more comfortable on the bike, but a lack of time on track has caused us quite a headache. We have struggled mainly with the front-end of the machine and this track is completely different from Brno, so we had a lot of setting changes to make. I had to squeeze a lot into the two hours on track and we had to wait until the afternoon heat, which will be similar to that of the race, before we could try to find a useable race tyre. Then we had to fit in qualifying too, and our final position today reflects this. My crew chief has a lot of ideas about the areas we need to change and we will review the data overnight to see where we can make significant improvements during tomorrow's warm-up.´

Anthony West - eighteenth

`It is frustrating to come here after such a great weekend in Brno only to end up at the back of the field. We tried many different set-up changes to provide me with more confidence in the front of the bike, but nothing really brought much of an improvement. I can´t brake hard into the turns, and this makes it difficult to put a fast lap together. We have to find an improvement overnight and I am sure that tomorrow´s race will be tough, but we have to keep pushing forwards to achieve the results we have shown we are capable of.´