Hopkins confident of stronger qualifying

With the Japanese bike manufacturer having made improvements to the Ninja ZX-RR ahead of the Le Mans event, Hopkins thinks that if they can improve his confidence in the front of the bike then he can take dramatic steps forward in terms of laptime.

"Le Mans is a track I quite enjoy and although the position isn't where we want to be, I'm feeling confident," said the American. "We've used the practice sessions today to find a tyre combination that works well in both the front and rear.

"At the moment we're struggling a little bit with feeling in the front-end, which is costing us time. It's nothing particularly major as we can lap quickly and consistently, but I feel that an improvement in this will reduce our lap time considerably.

"We have a few ideas on how to achieve this and tomorrow we'll be aiming for a good qualifying position."

Teammate Anthony West was also encouraged by his performance on the opening day, feelings he had finally found some consistency in speed that has been lacking so far this year.

"I'm feeling a little bit more confident here today than I have in previous rounds," said the Australian. "The circuit seems to suit our bike, as there are not so many turns here where the bike is leaned over for long periods of time, and this is where we've experienced problems in the past.

"We've made some alterations to my Ninja ZX-RR and I feel a lot more comfortable as I can use the bike's strength on corner entry to put together reasonable lap times. The position isn't anywhere near where we want to be, but I can lap consistently and this is a good sign as we were unable to do this before.

"There are two longer corners in the track where we need to improve traction, but we have some direction now and I hope we can continue with this tomorrow."