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SuperbikePlanet.com Interview: MotoGP Racer John Hopkins
'You've got to adapt or die.'
by dean adams
Wednesday, January 10, 2007

John Hopkins enters his fifth year of MotoGP racing in 2007. He gives frank and honest answers in this in-depth interview.
image by Souponese Liberation Army
In many ways John Hopkins' rise to MotoGP stardom took a decidedly different path than is the norm. One moment, you saw Hopkins campaigning a Suzuki GSX-R in American roadracing and, seemingly, the next moment, he was wrestling a fire-breathing Yamaha YZR500 around the hallowed GP circuits of Europe and the rest of the world.

He didn't join MotoGP as a conquering hero in US, British, Japanese, Australian, or World Superbike. He didn't start out on a GP 125 bike and advance up through the Grand Prix ranks. To some, he seemed to appear almost out of nowhere. But, he got there...and he stuck.
Now, five years on from his first foray into World Championship Grand Prix Motorcycle Roadracing, we caught up to Hopkins and asked him a few questions about his past, his present, and his future in the sport he loves.

Q. One interesting thing from your perspective is that you've really seen the changes in the GP bikes from the 500 era to the first year of the 990s, through the 990 era and now to the 800s. You've just gotten off the Suzuki 800. When you think back to the Yamaha 500 that you started GP racing on, what are your immediate thoughts of that bike and the progress that has—or maybe hasn't—been made?

A. I think the developments, in terms of all the factories, has gone through the roof. Because what the 500 was, it was an amazing bike, it was awesome, but compared to the four-strokes right now, it was very primitive, I guess you could say, in terms of really wanting to bite you. Really wanting to bite you in the ass. The thing wanted to highside you any second that it could. There was a traction control system on it, but nothing like we have on the four-strokes. Then the first year that the 1000s came out, they really didn't handle all that great. A lot of electronics problems. Especially the Suzuki at first, but everyone, all the teams, had big electronic problems. The 800 is just a huge step above that, because what I've ridden already, we're already beating the 1000 lap times. After three or four years of development of the 1000, we get on the 800, and like I said, it's (already) beating the lap times. The traction control. It's basically like riding a 250 now, the 800.

Q. How does that make your job different as a rider?

A. It's similar to going back to the 500 in some ways. I guess the corner speed that I've had to hold on the Suzuki, the entire time at Suzuki now with the 1000 machine being down on a little bit of horsepower, it's caused me to ride a little bit harder in mid-corner, and carry the lean angle and carry the corner speed mid-corner, whereas on the 500, that's all you had to do. There was no engine braking or anything, so you needed to carry loads of corner speed. It's kind of bringing it back with the 800, because that's what the 800's all about. You've got to hold the corner speed. Because if you - it's not really a bike you can slide it in and then just stand it up and lock it out of the corner, just wide open out of the throttle, and get it out of the corner. Now, you've got to be really smooth, and you've just got to maintain the corner speed. Just the lines, I think, are going to change quite a bit, and they already have. You run a lot wider on the track, and you just don't apex it as quick as you did on the 1000.


Clearly Hopkins has full confidence in the front end of the Suzuki MotoGP bike. He says that the corner-speed work done on the 990 Suzuki helped when building the 800. image by Souponese Liberation Army

Q. The only time I think I saw you ride a 250 was that Aprilia that you rode at Road Atlanta, and maybe a couple of other times that season (1998). I wouldn't describe you as a 250 rider. Clearly, that transition hasn't been difficult, because you're going really well on the bike.

A. Yeah, like I said, I think the last couple of years on the Suzuki, with the corner speed that we've had to hold on the Suzuki to maintain the lap time, I think has improved my situation towards the 800 as well. Right now, just really focused on it. It feels really good. Right now the Suzuki feels really, really good, so I'm really happy with the 800 change right now.

Q. Maybe you won't agree, but I think for the entire 990 era at Suzuki, you were riding some sort of rough draft lab bike. One that was never as fully developed as anything else on the grid. Your thoughts?

A. Yeah, I agree with you completely. It wasn't until last year that Suzuki really put forth all the effort that they could. Throughout the year last year, we started to get new products and new developments throughout the year, and even towards the end of the year in the chassis that we were going to use towards the 800. I don't think Suzuki really set forth the entire effort that they could have until last year. But they've changed their whole operation now, and their budgets have gone into it, and they've realized how important MotoGP is in sales, so I think they're really pushing the envelope on the development of the 800.

Q. At the MotoGP press day at the end of the 2005 season, they took the bodywork off the Suzuki, and I was really surprised to see—that bike look liked a half-knitted blanket without the bodywork on it. I assume that they were making what looked to be wholesale changes to that engine and chassis all the time. From a rider's perspective, that's got to be difficult to consistently go fast, when they're making seemingly large changes in chassis and engine placement.

A. It is tough. Because you really want to get all your development done at the end of the year, because when you're racing during the season, you just don't have time to do any testing. The races are so back-to-back-to-back. You get a couple of tests here and there after one race weekend, but the track's always different, and everyone always goes quicker on the day after the race.

Q. Why is that, from your perspective? A lot of riders finally get it on the Monday test after the race. Is that just time on the bike, or what?

A. I think it's just the pressure of the weekend's over. Once you've put forth - once you're out there at 110% for anywhere from 22 to 32 laps, I think the next day you're a lot more relaxed. You know all your markers. You know everything - everything comes a little bit more natural, and I think the pressure's off from the weekend. So it's just a little bit easier to go quicker. That's my take on it.

Q. When was the first time that you rode the 800 Suzuki?

A. It was in Valencia after the race.

Q. What were your immediate thoughts after your first session?

A. I was amazed, because I had gone a couple of tenths quicker than I did the entire race, on my first run out on the 800. The whole team and everyone - I had done five timed laps on my first run on the 800, and my last two timed laps were quicker than any of my race times on the 990. So we were very, very happy with that right away.

Q. From an observational standpoint, it certainly seems as if riders who have 250 experience are going to be dealt an amazing set of cards in the 800 era. Do you agree? Guys like Pedrosa, Stoner, guys like that - it seems like it's a class made for these guys.

A. Yeah, I think it's put the cards on their table a little bit. I think it's going to help them out on the 800. It's definitely going to - at the end of the day, a good rider's going to be a good rider, and is going to stand out. But it's definitely going to put an advantage to the 250 riders, for sure, just with the corner speed, like I said, and the racing lines. As much curbing as we're using at the tracks that we've been to so far, it's a lot like a 250. So I would say it's given an advantage to those guys, for sure.

Q. And how do guys who came from Superbikes, or big bikes as you did, acclimate? I guess you either adapt or die, right?


With Kenny Junior, Colin Edwards and others trailing, Hopkins leads in '06 MotoGP racing. image by Souponese Liberation Army

A. Exactly. You've got to adapt or die. There was people that were amazing riders on Superbikes and everything like that, but just never could come to grips with the 500. It's a lot easier to ride now, the 800. The 500 was brutal. But it's just - I think everyone will stand out. Colin's got 250 experience, he's going really well on the 800. And once the Honda - obviously the Honda was a little bit down at the beginning of the test, but there's no doubt they'll have that sorted out come race time.

Q. Historical question. Kevin Schwantz stayed with Suzuki for his entire career. There's a school of thought that he'd be a multi-time World Champion if he had left Suzuki. He had offers to go to Yamaha and Honda a couple of times, but he stuck with them, and he did get the single championship, so there seemed to be some confirmation of his decision to stay with them. Do you see yourself staying with Suzuki, knowing all of that?

A. Yeah. I get the question all the time, and my theory on it is basic. Right now I've got a great package. I've got a great team. I've got great mechanics behind me that I've built an extremely good relationship with. Going out on a Suzuki, I've got a really good feeling with Suzuki, and I've always liked the people that have been behind the development, and definitely liked the team, and obviously Kevin being my hero, I think it's a big part of the reason why I always wanted to stay at Suzuki.

I think it'd be a lot better—I think it's going to be a lot more gratifying to go out on a bike and be able to start winning on a bike that I've helped a lot, in a lot of ways, with the development over the last four or five years. And being able to go out and run at the front of the races, and being able to hopefully win on something like that, would be way more gratifying than going out and racing on a proven winner.

"...basically it just motivates me, because his dream was for me to be a MotoGP or 500c World Champion."

--Hopkins on the death of his father

Q. I talked to Kenny Roberts (last week), and explained to him that when you went 500 racing, Mat Mladin and myself and others were pretty vocal in that we thought you were making an enormous mistake in going to Europe that early, especially when the class was going to change. Roberts said something that I felt was really profound: "John probably wouldn't have made it to Grand Prix if he didn't go when he did." Your thoughts?

A. That was the thing. It was kind of funny, because the whole issue—I could have gone to any Superbike team. I had been testing the 500, and it had gone okay, it wasn't too bad, and it was obviously where I wanted to be for the future. That was where I wanted to go. It was my life dream. It was looking like I was going to go that way, and I had offers to go to - I think it was every Superbike team that there was available.

The only Superbike team that I couldn't get into, after I won the Formula Xtreme championship, was the Yoshimura Suzuki team. So I was like, "Oh, all right, whatever." If I would have got a Yoshimura Suzuki ride, I would have stayed. Because I've always liked Suzuki. On minibikes, that's all I used to ever race, on motocross, and everything. So if I would've got the Yoshimura Suzuki ride, I would've stayed in America and raced Superbike. But later, to come to find out that I didn't get the Yoshimura Suzuki bike because Mel Harris didn't like my tattoo and my earrings and that, and didn't like the image - I think it was just more of, "All right, well, I don't have this ride, and I don't want to stay here, so I'm just going to go and just run for it." And it's been one hell of a ride, that's for sure.

Q. It's got to be mildly gratifying for you, when we were so convinced that you were making a mistake, for you to prove that we were idiots, really.

A. [Laughing] Yeah. Hopefully I can do that more this season.

Q. I don't really know your situation with your dad other than you lost him really early. Was he a big influence on your racing career?

A. Yeah. A huge influence on my racing career. But it was never forced upon me. I grew up, since I was a couple of months to a year old, we were going out to the desert every single weekend, because my family moved from England over here. So every weekend we'd be out camping and riding our motocross bikes with all of our family, uncles that had moved over from England. We'd go out and just ride. I started riding when I was two or three years old. Then when I was about three or four years old, one of the family friends took us to Ascot Race Park, and I was watching him race one of the night motocross races there. I saw the little peewees going around, and I said, "I've got to do that! Why don't we race? Why don't we race? I want to race!" And that was it. From that moment on, my entire family, I think, gave up everything for me to race. It eventually took off, and we'd do Nationals. We'd be going to Oklahoma, Florida, New York, and everywhere, just for all the motocross nationals. My dad - it was never forced upon me. He was really good in the sense that he would tell me if I wasn't trying hard enough, he'd say, "I know you can do better than that," and stuff like that, but he never made me do anything I didn't want to do. So it was good. And then obviously, with him racing, being roadracing and having raced the TT when he was younger, I think he wanted me to go roadracing. That was part of it. Because I had the option at 15 to go either motocross, stick at it and try to go pro at motocross, or to go roadracing. I think the huge decisionmaker to go with roadracing was part of my father's.

Q. How old were you when your dad died?

A. Twelve.

Q. Did you go racing the next year after that?

A. I don't even think I took a couple weeks off. The family didn't want me to—he didn't want it either, and that was something that he definitely told my mom: "Look, when I pass away, don't take time off racing. Keep his head into it and don't let him wander off and get into other stuff." They kept me racing. My sister - my dad had taught everything that he knew to my sister, before he passed away. Working on the bikes, and how to do it all. So it was my mom and my sister, they took me to the races every weekend after that.

Q. Lorenzo Lanzi, the Ducati World Superbike rider, made a pretty epic run into World Superbike, winning races at the end of the 2005 season. He was signed to the Ducati World Superbike team, which was his dream and also his father's dream. And then after the '05 season ended, his dad passed away when they were out trail riding. Lorenzo probably wouldn't agree with this, but I think he was just shell-shocked by the grief of losing his father—and it showed in his results last year. How did you deal with the grief?

A. No, if anything it's motivated me more, especially as I've gotten older. Of course, when I was young, it was hard. I held a lot inside of me. I think it was really tough—I think it was a lot easier when I was that young, to deal with it. If it were to happen now, I think it would have been a little bit tougher, I think. But basically it just motivates me, because his dream was for me to be a MotoGP or 500c World Champion. It's always been my dream as well. It's not something one-sided at all. We shared the same dream. It's something that I've got to accomplish for myself and for him.

Q. Moving on, you haven't had great luck at Laguna Seca in the two previous USGPs. Can you talk a little bit about the event, your experiences there the last two years, what you think of the track?

A. It's good. The first year we went there, I actually did a lot better, I would say, the first year than I did the second year I went there. The first year, the bike was pretty strong. It was definitely pretty hard to ride. The track - a lot of the riders have complaints about the walls and everything, but obviously it was the track that we grew up on. The Valvoline team I raced for, they always tested there during the winter. So we got a lot of lap times there. I went into that race, the first one, going all right, and we finished eighth or whatever. For our bike, for that year, I thought it was all right. It wasn't the greatest. I was kind of disappointed I didn't finish higher. But last year, I think I just put way, way too much pressure on myself. I showed up and just wanted to do so much better than I did. I think I overloaded myself with pressure. The track was definitely really bad this last year. It sucked to see that, because there was potholes forming during the race. But I love Laguna Seca. I love the track, and I think it's fun, and obviously an American winning it, I'm pumped on that. That was cool, both years. We don't need an Italian or Spanish guy winning our home Grand Prix. I wasn't too happy with my result, but what can you do? You've got to move on and push forward.

Q. There's a lot of world class guys—Carl Fogarty, Aaron Slight, just off the top of my head— guys who just could not really get their head around Laguna as a rider. Do you feel comfortable there?

A . You know, I do and I don't. This last year, I can honestly say I never really got my hands really clean. I never really felt clean, to get a good line going. I never really felt - I obviously didn't feel as good as Chris did. It wasn't like the Suzuki couldn't go good. Because Chris rode a hell of a race there. That's by far his favorite track in the world. I definitely wasn't coming to terms with the track like Chris was. But yeah. It's not one of my tracks that I really dislike. I have fun around there. Just last year was a nightmare.


After previously being teamed with Kenny Junior, Hopkins is now teamed with Chris Vermeulen on the Suzuki MotoGP team. Chris the V's success at the '06 Laguna USGP wasn't missed by Hopkins. image by Souponese Liberation Army

Q. Watching you two on your bikes, that's the only thing that we really noticed: Chris looked like he was riding a streetbike, on his way to go surfing, and you just looked really, really tight.

A. I was really uncomfortable. It sucked.

Q. When do you get on the bike again? How much pre-season testing do you guys have planned?

A. Pretty big. We leave the 19th of January, and I think it's everybody. Every single team's going to test every test that we're testing at. We go to Malaysia on the 19th, and we test there for three days, then we're off for a couple of days, then we've got to fly down to Phillip Island, test at Phillip Island for three days. Then we've got about eight days off, so I'm going to fly back to California for five days. Then we've got to go fly to Qatar. We have a three-day test in Qatar, then we go back to Spain, have a three-day test in Jerez, Spain, then straight to Qatar for the first race.

Q. Are you confident that Suzuki has got plans and logistics in place for you to make your best championship run this season?

A. Yeah, guaranteed. Definitely. Right now we've just got to maintain our advantage over the other machines. We've got to bust our ass this off-season, because once the first race comes, we've got to be ready, and we've got to be prepared. I think Suzuki's ready, and myself, physically and mentally, we're very ready. I'm looking forward to it very much.

Q. Previously, it just seemed like problems would crop up, and judging by the expressions on people's faces in the Suzuki camp, and things like that, it kind of seemed like they hadn't thought this was going to happen. Which in racing, as you well know, that's death. If you're not prepared for something, that's bad. I think that's why people have the thought, "Okay, John's going to make a championship run this year, COMMA, but he's on the Suzuki." Your thoughts?

A. Yeah, you know, that's always a question mark. There are unexpected problems. But right now, that's our main goal, all through testing. We've really got to bust our ass, because we're going to be using a lot of tires, and we're going to be doing a lot of stuff with race distance. It ain't going to be short little four- or five-lap runs for us. Talking with the crew chief all this winter, once we get into testing, we're going to have to get out there and start doing a lot of race runs. We've got to test engine durability. We've got to make sure the tire durability is there with Bridgestone. We've got to make it happen.


At the end of the season Hopkins was given the chance to test an F1 car. He impressed a lot of people in the four-wheeled machine. image by Souponese Liberation Army

Q. You mention Bridgestone. They've made a miraculous ascent of success in MotoGP in the last few years. It's just amazing. It certainly has to be from your perspective, as well.

A. Definitely. I've said it ever since the first time, I always wanted to stay with Bridgestone, because their rate of development is so much higher than anything I've ever seen in the respective tires. I think they've got the research and development back in Japan - they've showed what they can do in Formula One. I'm looking forward to it. I think next year the consistency and the durability's going to be way better than they have been in previous years, by far.

Q. You mentioned Formula One. I talked to a person who was there when you drove that Formula One car, and he said it was impressive. You had really decent control. Guys have gotten into those things - fellows like Mick Doohan, and all they do is donuts. He said you looked really good. Can you tell me a little about it?

A. Yeah, it was all right. To be honest, I really felt comfortable in it. I didn't at first, because at first they sent me out on rain tires, and I spun it twice immediately. Nothing bad, just little quick spins, and had to come back in and do some data stuff. Then finally, we talked with the crew chief, and I said, "Just give me some race tires. I'll do what I've got to do to brake late." Because that's the main thing with those Formula One cars, is if you don't brake - if you're not doing a decent lap time, you're going to spin out, because the tires get cold. So I said, "Just give me it and I'll go for it." And then I went out and did a five-lap run, and just started to feel really comfortable. And then came back in, and actually felt the car pushing the front and sliding the rear, and had a little bit too much traction control, and needed to drop it off a little bit, and then they sent me out on another run, and that run got within two seconds of Luizzi's time, so I was way pumped with that. I was real happy. It was good. It was a natural feeling when I was out on there, so hopefully - I talked to the managers and told them, "Better organize me another test at the end of next year."

Q. I know Ducati was really pushing for you to be on the Ducati MotoGP team, I think right at the end of the first era, when they were just so astoundingly out of the box fast, but it never really came together. Can you say now why you didn't go to Ducati, or was it more just staying with Suzuki?

A. It was more just staying with Suzuki. The contract was definitely on the table. It was guaranteed that it was there and ready to sign. But it's just that staying on the Suzuki, and going out and being able to win on the Suzuki, was going to be—I think it's just going to bring a lot more gratification to myself.

Q. A lot of people don't understand your being British. As I understand it, your entire family moved over here from England, and you were raised here as a British family in America. People have some questions as to why you're referred to as Anglo-American. Are you basically a British person living in America, or how would you term it?

A. People term it how they want.

Q. Are you an American?

A My passport says so. And I'm proud to hold it, that's for sure. When I have a family and kids, they're going to be raised here in America, as well. I'm American. I live in England, obviously, during the season. The family ways - just certain things, the way you're brought up with a British family, like the food and dinners and stuff like that. It's good. But I would say I'm a full-blown American. I have the accent. I live here. And I'll raise my kids here.

ENDS

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