“Well done to Chris and well done to Suzuzki”John Hopkins looked like he was going to follow up his podium at China last time out with another one today.
He produced a number of stunning laps – including the fastest lap of the race – to move into first place on
lap nine.
After he entered the pit-lane on the next lap to change to his wet bike, he was unable to sustain his momentum and also suffered with a few issues with the set-up of his GSV-R.
Hopkins brought his bike home in seventh place for his fourth top seven finish of the year, a result that puts him into sixth place in the overall classification.
John Hopkins:
“Firstly I want to say well done to Chris and well done to Suzuki for standing on top of the podium. It is certainly an achievement to stand on the podium two races in a row; hopefully we can carry that streak on together. As for the race we chose one of the hardest slick rear tyres that we had, so I had to take it easy to get it up to temperature. Once it was there and I had confidence in it I was able to go from 12th to first in a short space of time. Everything was going fine until it started raining harder. I think we made the right decision when to come in to change the bike.
I tried to get used to riding in the wet and it all seemed to be going alright, but we had some minor adjustment problems that hindered us a bit. At the end of the day I kept it on two wheels and finished the race with some good points. We will take the positives from this weekend and although I am disappointed to finish where I did after all the hard work we put in in the dry, it's now time to move onto a lot of tracks that I enjoy and continue this podium streak for Rizla Suzuki!”
Suzuki Racing
