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MOTOGP: Hopkins: ‘Enough is Enough’
Written by: Colin Young   
05/29/2008
Mugello, Italy
 
Team Kawasaki's John Hopkins (Photo: Kawasaki Racing) ยป More Photos

American rider John Hopkins has demanded an immediate technical response from Kawasaki after a dismal start to the MotoGP season.

Despite a huge allocation of budget and resources from Kawasaki HQ in Japan the race team looks incapable of winning races. And this Sunday's Italian GP on the super-fast and technical Mugello circuit is unlikely to end Kawasaki's losing streak.

While Kawasaki are struggling, Mugello hero Valentino Rossi is chasing his seventh win in his home race aboard a Yamaha M1, the bike that has won three of the first five races this season.

For Hopkins, patience is at a premium after going without a win in more than 100 MotoGP starts. And relations between Hopkins and Kawasaki were at a crisis point following last week's French GP at Le Mans with Hopkins now demanding a dramatic increase in performance and work ethic.

Triggered by anger and frustration, Hopkins confronted Kawasaki team bosses on the Sunday evening of the Le Mans race which he failed to finish
because of a broken chain.

Despite the current situation Hopkins says he has no regrets about his move from Suzuki, on a two-year Kawasaki contract, and that he sees future potential for an upswing in fortunes, but Hopkins is concerned that Kawasaki are focusing too much development time on their experimental 'screamer' engine while ignoring the current performance problems.

A furious Hopkins confronted team director Ichiro Yoda and team manager Michael Bartholemy and Japanese technical staff in Le Mans.

"There was a very stern and frank discussion with the team and now is the time for me to start demanding development -- enough is enough -- I want to get some results," Hopkins said. "And strangely enough the team were quite excited that I was so upset and spoke so sternly to them. They say they are 100% behind me. But they had their heads bowed; they knew they were in trouble in the meeting.

"We need changes immediately, it is not a question of when, it needs to be now."
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