Nicky Hayden was forced to park his Repsol Honda bike at the side of the track after the former MotoGP world champion had a phenomenal start of the race. Nicky Hayden had a flying start and together with Ducati rider Casey Stoner he broke away from the rest of the field.

The Kentucky Kid showed a tremendous fighting spirit and determination, but disaster struck in the form of mechanical problems. The Repsol Honda rider was extremely frustrated and was fuming when he was forced to park his bike  next to track.

From that moment on Casey Stoner rode a lonely race to victory while his team mate Loris Capirossi finished second in front of Valentino Rossi.

Nicky Hayden about his race:

“That’s a tough one to swallow. That hurts because we were having a really good race and the bike was feeling by far the best it has all season without a doubt. Stoner was setting a hot pace – he was a little bit quicker in some places and I was quicker than him in a few places.

I was trying to hang in there and ride smoothly and try not to preserve the tyres and not get too crazy too quickly. It’s easy to speculate on what would have happened at the end of the race…

After a few laps I was still right on him but all of a sudden the engine started to get tight and started slowing down. I was nervous but it kept running and I wasn’t going to pull over so I kept one hand on the clutch. Eventually she tied up and that was it – another goose egg in the points column.

It’s really frustrating – it seems like the deck’s stacked against us at the moment, but we’ll hang in there and hopefully get a bit of luck going our way soon. We’ve got two more tries.”