MotoGP news
Hopkins back on track
29 February 2008 / Results / PhotosKawasaki Racing Team rider, John Hopkins, took to the track on the 800cc Ninja ZX-RR despite still recovering from a groin injury sustained at Phillip Island in January. The 24-year-old Anglo-American managed 71 laps and a best time of 1'56.614, putting him in an impressive seventh position on the leader board, just over a second off Casey Stoner, the fastest man of the session, and a mere 0.043 seconds off sixth placed rider, Andrea Dovizioso.
 |
|
Getting used to the lighting was the first hurdle and one which all the riders seemed to overcome fairly quickly. However, as Hopkins pointed out as he tested Bridgestone tyre combinations throughout the seven hours, low, night time track temperatures will make for a difficult decision on the rubber come the race.
He did, however, continue to forge ahead and recorded his fastest lap of the session right at the end: a positive sign of things to come.
Hopkins said after his first day of testing in Losail: "The priority today was to decide on a tyre for the first race next week and we evaluated many different combinations of both race and qualifying tyres. It's been a while since I've been able to get on the bike and get stuck into testing because of my injury, although this is slowly improving day-by-day.
 |
|
"The most difficult thing has been maintaining fitness whilst recovering but I managed to do some training this week and, despite still feeling sore, we got through quite a lot of laps today. The lighting around the circuit is good fun as it's a bit different from the usual, but the track temperature is quite low and I could really feel it in the tyres, which are going to be a crucial factor for the race. Now we know what tyre selection we will be using, we are going to concentrate on the machine set-up tomorrow."
more news
- 05 Sep.
- 01 Sep.
- 31 Aug.
- 30 Aug.
- 29 Aug.
- 26 Aug.
- 22 Aug.
- 20 Aug.
- 19 Aug.
- 18 Aug.
- 17 Aug.
- 16 Aug.
Homepage
Misano