British MotoGP: Kawasaki confirm West to ride ZX-RR for rest of MotoGP season

Kawasaki’s factory MotoGP team has confirmed to MCN that Anthony West will join Randy de Puniet for the remainder of the 2007 world championship.

As was revealed exclusively by MCN on Tuesday, the deal will be announced today on the eve of Sunday’s British MotoGP, with Anthony West scheduled to make his ZX-RR debut at Donington Park in the 30-lap clash.

The 25-year-old has been drafted in as replacement to injury-prone French rider Olivier Jacque, who has suffered a nightmare return to full-time racing in 2007.

He’s missed two of the opening seven MotoGP races in Le Mans and Barcelona through injury, and also caused the first lap carnage in Istanbul that wrecked the hopes of Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) , Colin Edwards (Fiat Yamaha) and Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki).

The former world 250 champion will revert back to his previous role as test and development rider for Kawasaki.

Anthony West recently completed a successful debut test at the Catalunya circuit in Spain. And while it wasn’t an audition ride, his impressive performance has landed a dream chance on the MotoGP factory ZX-RR, which is arguably the most improved machine in the new 800cc four-stroke premier class era.

West recently split from his Italian 250 squad and had looked like turning his back on the MotoGP paddock to try and rebuild his career in the World Supersport series.

With the Kawasaki deal, Yamaha this morning confirmed Anthony West had been released from his new World Supersport deal to accept the MotoGP offer.

Replacing injured compatriot Kevin Curtain, he won two out of the three races he contested on the World Supersport Yamaha Germany R6 including victory last weekend in Misano.

Kawasaki confirmed that Jacque’s injury problems had contributed to the decision to hire Anthony West.

Kawasaki spokesman Ian Wheeler told MCN: “OJ will go back to test and development rider because we haven’t had one since Naoki Matsudo got injured and Westy will ride our bike for the rest of the season. OJ’s job was to race and develop the bike which with the number of crashes he’s had and races not finished he’s not been doing unfortunately.

“Randy has been out there on his own and the fact that OJ has been injured has meant also that he’s missed the post race tests as well.

“That has meant Randy having to shoulder the testing on his own as well, and he’s only 26 and it’s only his second season and he’s having to do everything because he has no team-mate.

“We decided it was better to move OJ, he is a good test and development rider and the bike is as competitive as it is now because of the work he did last year.

“We’ve put somebody on the bike who can not just support Randy but also maybe push him a little bit as well.”

Wheeler said that Anthony West had thrust himself into MotoGP contention after his Barcelona outing, not only for his impressive lap times, but for the technical feedback that he was able to relate to engineers.

When he rode the MotoGP bike in Catalunya, what came out of it was that he was pretty quick on it straight away but on talking to the technical people in the team his feedback was really accurate.

He had a good understanding of what the bike and tyres were doing.

“The times were good but there is plenty of room to improve those times and he seems to have the ability to do it. We don’t want to say he’s gong to go out and finish top six but there is some potential there that we can see, “said Wheeler, who said Kawasaki had begun investigating the possibility of replacing Jacque before West’s test in Spain.

“People were already starting to think about the situation and the idea wasn’t to assess West as the replacement rider.

“It was really to give Randy some support with tyre testing but West’s performance in Catalunya starting people thinking that he was a possibility for a replacement.

“The internal discussion took place straight after he tested the bike but still working on the whole thing up until Sunday afternoon and that’s when it was finalized,” added Wheeler.

“He turned up on Monday at Catalunya and there were no expectations on our part and his whole approach to the test was completely professional.

His times were promising but really it all came down to what he managed to communicate to the team and the assessment of his technical ability in the bike.

It was then really that the possibility of him being a replacement started to be considered more seriously.”