Kawasaki unfazed by testing times

Although John Hopkins and Anthony West saw rivals Honda and Ducati top the times, their Kawasaki bosses were delighted with the feedback they got as they head into the winter break.

Kawasaki Competition Manager Michael Bartholemy said: "We finish the season happy with what we've achieved since the Valencia race. The new team members have been integrated into our existing structure with no problems, and already we're starting to see the benefits of their experience.

"We're also benefiting from the arrival of John Hopkins. His feedback has been extremely accurate and we now have a clear direction for our development engineers.

"That he's jumped on our Ninja ZX-RR and declared the bike only in need of some refinement, and no fundamental changes, means that Kawasaki's race engineers will be able to focus completely on addressing the areas for improvement that he's identified.

"The work that John has done over the last month will also pay dividends for Anthony, as he prepares for his first full winter test schedule aboard our MotoGP machine.

"Everyone in the team has shown outstanding commitment this year, and I hope that the six week break will provide them with an opportunity to recharge their batteries and come back next season more committed than ever."