Despite the fact Kawsaki have canned their factory MotoGP effort for 2009, test riders Oliver Jacque and Tamaki Serizawa have started a two-day test at Australia's Eastern Creek track.

Taking two riders, plus the 2008 and 2009 bikes, must mean Kawasaki must be close to doing a deal with either Jorge Martinez or incumbent manager Michael Bartholemy to run them as as a customer team, otherwise why bother?

Ex-250GP champ Jacaue did a few laps on the 2008 bike to remember which way round the former Grand Prix track goes, and then switched to the apparently significantly different 2009 Ninja.

Improvements include a new motor, chassis and swingarm and better aerodynamics. Jacque said the '09 bike seems lighter and more agile but he needs to get a lot of laps in to get an idea of its potential.