Hopkins still focused on helping Suzuki

The American, who has been with Suzuki since 2003, is enjoying his best ever season in MotoGP, and currently holds joint fourth place in the championship. He took a career-high second position in the last race at Brno.

"Right now we're focused on this year 100 percent," Hopkins said.

"I've still got a job to do at Suzuki and we want to be able to put the Suzuki on the podium week in, week out for the rest of the year."

When asked in the pre-race press conference at Misano if taking part in Suzuki tests was still worthwhile given his impending team switch, Hopkins insisted sessions like the Brno post-race test days were still valuable.

"We had a lot of things to test and a lot of things that will help us out for the rest of the year, and no matter what, I'm still going to be on Bridgestones next year so I still had to put in the work for them," he said.

Hopkins believes it will be tough to close the 44-point gap to third-placed Dani Pedrosa, so is focusing on beating his current teammate Chris Vermeulen to fourth in the standings - a position they currently share.

"I don't think it's impossible to catch him, but Dani's been riding consistently all throughout the entire year. That's why he is where he's at," he said.

"We've just got to try and continuously get on the podium.

"Right now it's bringing a bit of competition into the team because me and Chris are tied for fourth, so it's going to be a healthy little battle between us to get the best out of each other, and it's going to push us both further up in the championship table."