Yanagawa struggling to adapt style
Kawasaki wild card rider Akira Yanagawa admitted that he was still struggling to extract the bike's full potential after taking 18th on the grid at Motegi
Regular riders Randy de Puniet and Anthony West produced Kawasaki's best overall qualifying performance of the year as they took fourth and sixth, but Yanagawa was nearly two seconds adrift of de Puniet.
The All-Japan Superbike Championship leader said it was proving difficult to adapt his style to the very different MotoGP Ninja ZX-RR.
"I'm still unable to fulfil the potential of this bike the way we've seen Randy and Anthony doing today because I haven't yet managed to alter my riding style to suit it," Yanagawa said.
"For example, I like the front suspension to be set harder but this bike doesn't like that set-up so, as I said yesterday, we need to compromise!.
"For the race, we've chosen a softer front and a medium rear and I used two qualifying tyres, which made me almost a second faster, but I need to open the throttle some more.
"I'm used to this weather but I'm not used to this bike. But I will do my best, of course."
Tomorrow's race will be Yanigawa's first MotoGP start since Catalunya in 2003. He debuted the original ZX-RR at Motegi five years ago, but crashed and broke his pelvis after just six laps.
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