Eckl: Maybe I'm too optimistic but...

What a difference a year makes: Last season Kawasaki finished the Africa's Grand Prix - then round two of the world championship - in last place, but after encouraging pre-season progress they return this weekend 'optimistic' of a double top ten finish.

New race riders' Shinya Nakano and Alex Hofmann have spent five months of intensive testing aboard the latest version of the Ninja ZX-RR and - despite Welkom marking Nakano's first Kawasaki start and Hofmann's full time MotoGP debut - team manager Harald Eckl is in fighting mood.

"Finally, after a successful winter test programme for us, the season gets underway," he began. "As you can imagine, everyone in the team, and everyone involved in the MotoGP project at Kawasaki in Japan, is keen to see how the combination of new bike, new riders and new (Bridgestone) tyres will perform in a race situation for the first time on Sunday.

"I think that the work we have done with the chassis, the tyres and the overall handling of the new bike over the winter will stand us in good stead at circuits where outright power is not a major factor.

"Maybe I am being too optimistic, but I think there is a good chance of both our riders finishing in the top ten here at Welkom," revealed the German. "Of course, there are a lot of things that can go wrong between now and the end of the race on Sunday, but that's what makes racing so interesting..."

First qualifying for the Africa's Grand Prix takes place tomorrow (Friday).