John Hopkins is hoping to produce his best result yet for the Kawasaki team in this weekend's Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, claiming that the circuit should be more suited to both man and machine than either of the opening two venues.
After the historic night race at Qatar and the most recent battle at Jerez, Estoril provides something of an unknown for the teams, in as far as there has been no official testing there, but Hopkins is looking forward to the challenge of preparing for and racing 28 laps around the notoriously difficult 4.182km layout.
With his fitness steadily approaching 100 per cent after his testing crash at Phillip Island in January, the Anglo-American is looking stronger than ever and feels he can tackle Estoril with relish after finishing a healthy seventh in Spain last month.
Furthermore, an extra day's testing at Jerez, less than 24 hours after the race there, proved highly productive as the 24-year old continued to make adjustments to the Ninja ZX-RR in order to get it more suited his fast and aggressive riding style. With his engineers concentrating on gearing and suspension settings to accommodate Estoril's numerous, tough corners, heavy braking will be the order of the day and the crew has been aiming to maximise stability to deal with the arduous race.
"I'm feeling really positive for the weekend," 'Hopper' claimed, "I like Estoril. The tight corners require a lot of heavy braking, which should really suit my riding style, as well as suiting the Kawasaki machine.
"It's good because nobody's had much testing time there, so it's kind of an even playing field. I felt a lot better after Jerez than I did after Qatar. We got a positive result and made some good improvements to the bike so, hopefully, we can utilise those in Portugal.
"I enjoy the atmosphere at Estoril, so I'm excited about going there and I'm really looking forward to the race."
crash.net
After the historic night race at Qatar and the most recent battle at Jerez, Estoril provides something of an unknown for the teams, in as far as there has been no official testing there, but Hopkins is looking forward to the challenge of preparing for and racing 28 laps around the notoriously difficult 4.182km layout.
With his fitness steadily approaching 100 per cent after his testing crash at Phillip Island in January, the Anglo-American is looking stronger than ever and feels he can tackle Estoril with relish after finishing a healthy seventh in Spain last month.
Furthermore, an extra day's testing at Jerez, less than 24 hours after the race there, proved highly productive as the 24-year old continued to make adjustments to the Ninja ZX-RR in order to get it more suited his fast and aggressive riding style. With his engineers concentrating on gearing and suspension settings to accommodate Estoril's numerous, tough corners, heavy braking will be the order of the day and the crew has been aiming to maximise stability to deal with the arduous race.
"I'm feeling really positive for the weekend," 'Hopper' claimed, "I like Estoril. The tight corners require a lot of heavy braking, which should really suit my riding style, as well as suiting the Kawasaki machine.
"It's good because nobody's had much testing time there, so it's kind of an even playing field. I felt a lot better after Jerez than I did after Qatar. We got a positive result and made some good improvements to the bike so, hopefully, we can utilise those in Portugal.
"I enjoy the atmosphere at Estoril, so I'm excited about going there and I'm really looking forward to the race."
crash.net