It was all change for Kawasaki's MotoGP effort in 2007, with the previously European-run race team put under the direct factory control of experienced Grand Prix stalwart Ichiro Yoda. The team's European base moved to Holland from Germany, and an all-new motorcycle, the ZX-RR 800, was created for the new downsized MotoGP formula featuring pneumatic valve operation.
In fact Kawasaki's ZX-RR 800 was the surprise package of the season, delivering a turn of speed that consistently put its Yamaha and Suzuki rivals in the shade-and Honda on occasion, too. Luckily I was given five laps on both Randy de Puniet's bike (who finished second at a rain-sodden Motegi GP) and also teammate Anthony West's machine. I found it hard to get comfortable on de Puniet's Kawasaki, not only because of the very aggressive pickup his bike had from a closed throttle but also the peculiar riding setup he opts for-with a thick carbon pad fixed to the back of the seat to force him as far forward as possible, presumably to load up the front wheel with his body weight. I was wedged firmly in place and it was impossible to move around. To make matters worse, the Frenchman had the front brake and clutch pointing skyward motocross-style, so to squeeze them I had to rotate my wrists. I ended up getting a cramp in my right wrist while trying to brake at the end of the back straight.
Fortunately the other side of the Kawasaki coin was shown to me via five laps aboard Ant West's bike. This was a completely different machine to ride, with an altered engine management program that made the initial throttle response less jerky and much more controllable-although for what turned out to be surprising reasons. "Anthony is an animal with the throttle," says West's crew chief, Fiorenzo Fanali, who started out in GP racing back in the '70s wrenching MV Agustas for Agostini and Read. After 30 years of working for the Japanese manufacturers there's not much Fanali doesn't know about GP racing. "[Anthony] uses it like a light switch-either full open or right off. Nothing in between." Kawasaki's electronics guru Andrea Dosoli has concocted a program for the Magneti Marelli Marvel 4 ECU to offset this brutal throttle usage by controlling the first 40 percent of throttle opening to deliver a smoother response no matter how quickly West twists it. Call it pre-traction control, basically softening initial throttle inputs while still delivering optimized acceleration once wide open. Electronics have an answer to everything today.
This extra control meant I could start to ride the Kawasaki harder, getting a taste of the free-revving pneumatic-valve engine's impressive performance. Having just stepped off Nicky Hayden's RC212V Honda I could make some direct comparisons, and it seemed the Kawasaki motor was stronger down low than the Repsol bike, pulling hard and clean from as low as 7800 rpm on the clearly readable 2D liquid-crystal display dash (much better than the Marelli LCD on the GP7 Ducati). But although its power delivery is very linear and the eager-revving engine builds power quickly, the Kawasaki's midrange felt weaker compared with the Honda-and not quite as powerful on top. The row of red shifter lights across the top of the dash all flash together at 17,800 rpm with the rev limiter cutting in at 18,300 rpm; you can feel the engine is still pulling, so presumably that's for durability reasons.
But the linear power delivery meant I could hold second gear all through the Valencia infield as West informed me he also does, despite the bottom four ratios on the Kawasaki transmission being quite tightly spaced, more so than the Honda's gearbox. At least the ZX-RR 800 Kawasaki isn't as much of a wheelie hound as its 990cc big brother was; this one just hovers the front wheel about six inches above the tarmac as you powershift through the race-pattern gearbox. The somewhat stretched-out 57.5-inch wheelbase-actually a little shorter than the 990 ZX-RR-surely helps here.
While the '07-model 990cc ZX-RR felt like the smallest and most agile bike on the grid, the 800cc Kawasaki feels bigger, especially when compared with the diminutive Honda. Although the chassis is new to accommodate the more compact pneumatic-valve motor, it's probably retained the same dimensions as the 990 frame, just with detail changes to the geometry and architecture. It still feels low-slung, though you do sit notably higher off the ground compared with the Ducati, especially on de Puniet's bike, which was higher at the rear than West's more balanced setup. The Frenchman obviously likes to ride the bike on the front wheel, which makes it turn in very well with loads of confidence in the front Bridgestone without seeming to affect stability or rear grip-not that I was able to push the Kawasaki's traction control the way he does.