John Hopkins has notified his team, Rizla Suzuki, that he intends to leave them at the end of the 2007 MotoGP World Championship season, according to a source within that team, and the 24-year-old American rider is expected to announce this weekend at the German Grand Prix that he will join the Kawasaki MotoGP effort in 2008. Inquiries made directly with Hopkins and the Kawasaki MotoGP team were not answered at post time. Hopkins, the son of British-born parents (his father won a TT at the Isle of Man before being disqualified for being under age), got his racing legs in motocross near his home in Southern California. He switched over to CMRRA mini road racing before he was 10 and rode a Honda RS125 and a Yamaha TZ250 with WSMC as an adolescent. Hopkins was seen at road races in Southern California by Team Hammer, Inc. race team owner John Ulrich, the man credited with discovering World Champion Kevin Schwantz; Ulrich bought an Aprilia RS250 for 15-year-old Hopkins to ride in the Aprilia Cup Challenge spec series in 1999. Hopkins won three of the four races and the Aprilia Cup Championship. That year, after turning 16, Hopkins also rode a Team Hammer (then racing as Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki) GSX-R600 to fifth in his AMA debut race (the AMA 750cc Supersport event at New Hampshire International Speedway), won the Suzuki GSX-R600 Cup Final at Road Atlanta and captured five CCS National Championships at Daytona. In 2000, Hopkins rode for Team Hammer again and won the AMA 750cc Supersport Championship in his first full year of AMA racing. He also won seven out of 12 Formula USA Unlimited Superbike races and finished second in that Championship. “Hopper,” as he was dubbed by Team Hammer, then won the AMA (1000cc) Formula Xtreme Championship for the team in 2001, the first AMA title for the GSX-R1000. In between races in 2001, Ulrich arranged for Hopkins to test a YZR500 with Red Bull Yamaha, and Hopkins’ performance earned him a ride with the team in the 2002 MotoGP World Championship. It rained on Hopkins’ debut Grand Prix in Japan and he crashed — twice, but he picked his bike up both times, pitted for repairs once and soldiered on to finish 12th and score his first World Championship points. Racing his 500cc two-stroke against 990cc four-strokes, rookie Hopkins went on to finish in the top 10 four times in 2002. The never-say-die attitude that Hopkins demonstrated in his GP debut in Japan would serve him well as he signed to ride Suzuki’s troubled 990cc four-stroke in 2003. In spite of numerous technical problems with the Suzuki (some that put him on his head more than once) and it being generally uncompetitive, Hopkins continued giving Suzuki and tire partner Bridgestone 110% at all times. The GSV-R990 and Bridgestones improved somewhat in 2006, resulting in Hopkins’ first MotoGP pole position and him taking 10th in the Championship with the highest point total of his career. During his time on the 990cc Suzuki, Hopkins was forced to override the machine into and through corners to make up for its lack of straightline speed. This led to him developing a riding style with very late braking and very high corner speeds, a style that matched Bridgestone’s ever-improving tires and the much more competitive Suzuki GSV-R800 in 2007. So far this season, Hopkins has finished on the podium once, his first ever in MotoGP, and inside the top five six times in the first nine races. In fact, at the halfway point of the 2007 campaign, Hopkins has just 22 fewer points than he earned all year in 2006. It will be interesting to see what Hopkins can do on the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR. Hopkins’ new deal is rumored to be worth about $5 million a year.