It was a successful first day of testing for the Kawasaki MotoGp team in Phillip Island as the three-day testing programme started with perfect conditions.
The Kawasaki riders and test rider Olivier Jacque will ride more than 1000 Km on this day only.
Marco Melandri will work with the suspension engineers to improve the front and Jacque will concentrate on the revised chassis and the new electronic package.
For Hopkins was it a painful day.
His fractured ankle from his crash at Assen from June is fixed with a plate but still giving problems.
He worked with his new chief Naoya Kaneko to improve laptimes.
Olivier Jacque, test rider and development rider said: “Today we’ve focused on evaluating a new chassis on the Ninja ZX-RR, with positive results.
We’re also working with a revised electronics package on the bike, which gives us more options for fine-tuning the power delivery characteristics, and again the initial results have been positive.
”All the data from these three days will be collected and will be used for the Kawasaki development programme for 2009, when the Ninja ZX-RR will perform for the first time at Sepang in February.