Kawasaki riders rue disappointing results

American rider John Hopkins had to retire from seventh place when the chain on his Ninja ZX-RR broke, while Australian Anthony West struggled for grip and finished the race almost a lap down in 14th place.

Hopkins, who was hoping to for a good results with the way the weekend was going, was also left calling his teams for engine improvements.

"After practice and qualifying I really thought we could come away from Le Mans with a good result, which makes today even more frustrating," said Hopkins.

"I got a pretty good start, and was then able to make up places by passing on the brakes, but there are still a number of areas where we're losing out, on acceleration out of the turns for example, and this makes it difficult to make a pass stick.

"It's no fun holding off someone like (Fiat Yamaha's Jorge) Lorenzo for a whole lap, only to see him motor past you as soon as you get onto the straight. We need to work on these areas, starting with tomorrow's test, and we need to make some improvements if we're to increase our competitiveness.

"As for the chain, I guess that was just bad luck. Now we need to find out why it failed, so we can avoid the same problem in the future.

Hopkins also apologised to Suzuki rival Loris Capirossi for an overtaking move that pushed the Italian on the grass.

"Finally, I'd like to apologise to Loris for the pass I put on him, which was a little bit hard. Sorry Loris," he concluded.

West, who has lamented a lack of traction at the rear throughout the season, said that problem worsened in the race today, with the team later identifying the cause in the bike's set-up.

"I am not happy at all," he said. "This weekend has been a struggle, because we've had the same rear traction problems that we've experienced at every track since the start of the season. But then, in the race, the rear grip was non-existent; the bike was spinning up if I even thought about opening the throttle.

"I knew straight away that something was wrong, but short of coming in for a change of tyre and kissing any chance of a points scoring finish goodbye, there was nothing I could do.

"In the end, I just did what I could to ride round the problem, but I don't think I've ever been as happy to see the chequered flag as I was today.

"Now I want to know what the problem was, and I want to be sure that we don't have the same problem again."

Kawasaki competition manager Michael Bartholemy publicly apologised to West on behalf of the team, who took full blame for the rider's set-up problem.

"To Anthony I'd like to apologise, because the difficulties he experienced today were due to a miscalculation on the part of the team," Bartholemy said.

"He showed true determination this afternoon by riding around the problem to finish the race, and for that he should be commended."