Kawasaki to introduce more upgrades

The team believe that they have found an extra five horsepower with increased revs, new internal parts, and improved engine mapping.

It means that the engine has now gained 15 horsepower since the opening race of the year at Qatar, while front fender and fairing modifications should further improve their top speed that has impressed in recent races.

Extensive wind tunnel testing in Japan has been responsible for the changes to the front fender that will throw more air into the radiator, and guide air around the edge too.

"We have progressively gone up in power with 3 horsepower here, four horsepower there, because we knew the output was a little low first time out," said Kawasaki's communication manager Ian Wheeler.

"But now we've worked on the biggest gains first, we are building on what we have."

Kawasaki's first proper MotoGP test with the 800cc bike was in November 2006 at Sepang, but reliability problems held them back at the time. But top speed figures from round three in Turkey showed the bike was not far away from the fastest bikes.

The team believe that the bike is now at a strong level, but they have urged their riders to up their game as well.

"We still say that the bike has still to be developed to its full potential," Wheeler added. "We are on a different level now.

"Olivier (Jacque) is very experienced and was just turning from getting out his test rider frame of mind when his accident happened in China.

"Randy (de Puniet) has improved this year, but he still makes mistakes. We have seen that he is fast, now we need to improve his consistency."