West says he still needs time to adapt

The Australian, a wet weather specialist, took full advantage of the rain that hit the British track to climb from 17th to fourth in the opening laps of the event.

West fell on lap seven, however, but claimed after the race that he could have won.

Despite his impressive showing, the Kawasaki rider reckons ahead of this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix that it's still too early to think about strong results.

"I like Assen and have good memories of it as I won my first GP race there in 2003, riding a 250cc," said West, who replaced Olivier Jacque at the team.

"It used to be really fast and flowing but the first part was changed and lost some of its appeal. The last part, the nicest bit, remains the same though.

"There are some corners you can go in to really hard and I'm really looking forward to riding the Ninja ZX-RR round there.

"I'd like to go and be fast but there's still so much to learn and I need more time. The aim is just to do the same good job we did at Donington: improving session after session, one step at a time. I'm still getting used to the whole thing, and it's going to take a while yet, but I'm having a lot of fun at the moment and it's all good."

Teammate Randy de Puniet, meanwhile, is aiming to keep his run of positive results after finishing sixth in Donington and fifth in the previous round in Spain.

"Since Barcelona, we've been going well and I hope to continue this trend at Assen," said de Puniet. "Until they made all the changes, it was my favourite circuit of the whole championship but, even though I still like it, it has lost most of its magic. The first section used to be quite fun but now it's just too slow.

"Last year, the Ninja worked quite well and it seemed to be a favourable track for Kawasaki, as Shinya's podium proved. I was just unlucky: I had a problem with the front tyre during the warm up lap and had to start the race from the pits.

"I'm still not fully recovered from my shoulder and knee injuries but they're getting better every day. We've already shown we can finish in the top eight and that's the target this weekend, too."