Kawasaki WSB - Qater preview

[MadKaw]

NEW WORLD DREAM FOR PSG-1 KAWASAKI
Newsflash, 19 February 2008 - All the hard work put in by the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse Team during pre-season development and testing will culminate on Saturday 23rd February, when the first of 15 World Superbike Championship rounds gets underway for real at Losail, in Qatar.
Makoto Tamada and Régis Laconi, the team’s exciting rider line-up for 2008, have recently completed tests at the 5.380km circuit in the desert just outside the Qatari Capital of Doha, preparing the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R for its first ever competitive outing since the launch of the latest new model to bear the legendary name of Ninja.

Sharpened, improved and more race-ready than ever the ZX-10R has proved to be a good base for competition use already and now Laconi and Tamada - both proven winners in World Superbike and GP racing - will go all out to prove its worth in the first of a total of 30 individual points scoring races. World Superbike is still unique in global road racing, in having two races per raceday, delivering two opportunities to score full points.

The race at Losail is now a traditional season starter for World Superbike, the state-of-the-art circuit now hosting SBK for the fourth successive season. It is an unusual event in the calendar, not least because it takes place on a Saturday, while every other race on the calendar is based around Sundays. Therefore, the first day of practice this ‘weekend’ is on Thursday 21st, Superpole qualifying is held on Friday 22nd, with the two Superbike races on Saturday 23rd.

Losail is by now a firm favourite with the riders, as its flat layout contains some extremely high speed cornering sections, and one of the longest straights on any modern circuit. The whole track is, in fact, almost a kilometre longer than most other circuits built in the last decade or so, meaning that it takes some time for most riders to learn the fastest way around, especially as the condition of the track surface changes sometimes day-to-day.

Laconi and Tamada have vast experience of the Qatari circuit, Laconi from his recent career in World Superbike and Tamada from his time in MotoGP. Laconi took no time in learning Losail back in 2005, scoring two podiums on his first ever visit but this will be Tamada’s first experience of the Losail circuit in race conditions in World Superbike. Tamada is not a rookie to SBK - far from it - as he raced and won as a wild card at Sugo in 2001 and 2002.

Almost 30 full-time World Superbike machines will line up for the Losail race, before the championship heads off to Australia for the second round of the championship, at Phillip Island on March 2.

[MadKaw]

KAWASAKI WORLD SUPERSPORT SQUAD READY FOR ROUND ONE
Newsflash, 19 February 2008 - GIL Kawasaki riders Katsuaki Fujiwara and Chris Walker have good reason to be confident going into the first race of the 2008 World Supersport season, having only recently completed a positive test at the 5.380km Losail Circuit with their Ninja ZX-6R machines.
With both riders on the pace over a single timed lap, and putting in strong performances on race tyres, the new riding line up in the GIL team has already proven itself adept at learning the character and personality of the ZX-6R, and now the entire team aims to qualify well, and then race even better come Saturday 23rd, date of the first race of the 14-round season.

Unlike the Superbike class, the WSS category will not be racing at the new venue of Miller Motorsport Park in America in June, hence their Supersport season will count one less round than the bigger displacement machines. Also unlike Superbike, the World Supersport competitors only have one race per weekend, making each individual performance count all the more.

Fujiwara, like his team-mate Walker, is a new rider in the GIL set-up this year but unlike Chris ‘Kats’ is one of the most experienced competitors in the entire Supersport division. He has an enviable record at Losail. He won the first ever WSS race to be held in Qatar, in 2005, and last year scored a podium finish in third. More of the same would be a great start with his new team, which scored podiums and a glorious race win (at Phillip Island) last year.

Walker is a real class rookie in World Supersport, having never competed even in 600cc national racing in his early career, making the leap from 250GP-style machinery to Superbike in one bound. The proven World Superbike winner in Kawasaki colours is out to repeat that experience on the big Ninja just as soon as possible.

Like the World Superbike riders, the World Supersport competitors will have their second round of the season at Phillip Island, on 2 March.

Katsuaki Fujiwara: “We know we are ready to face the season after our recent tests in Qatar. We could lap at a high pace without great difficulty, we could match our set-up to the tyres we had available. In general we worked well together. We just need to keep that going into the race weekend and I hope to have another good Supersport experience in Qatar.”

Chris Walker: “I have lots of experience of Superbike racing but riding the Supersport bike is like a different discipline. The testing I have had has been like going back to school in some ways. But we’ve worked hard to improve and we did it in the last test here. I was very pleased to be so close to Katsuaki in that test, even if he helped me a lot! I’m really excited now that the first round is coming along, I want it to be a great experience, and it couldn’t come on a better track, because I love the Losail layout; it’s so fast and flowing.”

[robracer]

Thats funny....... Tamada has AXO sponsorship on his leathers & he is shown here with a Shoei helmet