Nicky Hayden: The season’s in the books
Nicky Hayden put up a valiant fight today. The 2006 World Champion was second from the start and held third place for the first three laps as he extracted the maximum performance from his RC212V.
It was always an uphill struggle for the 26-year-old American who had battled grip issues for the entire weekend. Nicky Hayden duelled with Marco Melandri for two thirds of the race but in the final ten laps he couldn’t maintain the pace and slipped to eighth at the finish. Despite this the Kentucky Kid climbed one place in the World Championship today to finish in eighth overall.
With the 18-race 2007 season over, preparations for 2008 begin immediately with the Repsol Honda Team remaining at Valencia for two days of testing, beginning on Tuesday.
Nicky Hayden about his race
“Well, we knew all weekend that we were on the back foot and the race proved it. We made a lot of changes for warm-up this morning and the package felt a bit better, but still we didn’t have the pace we needed for the race.
I got a pretty good start but there were a few places on the lap where I was too weak and this made it quite a difficult race for me. I got past Melandri and held on to fourth for as long as I could but then to lose four places in the last five or six laps was tough to take.
Still, the season’s in the books and we’ll start over with testing on Tuesday – it’s been a tough year so now we’ll go back to work.
Thanks to the team for all their hard work this year – everybody at Honda, Michelin, my mechanics and everyone who’s been behind me this year. We’re going to keep working hard so we can do a lot better in 2008.”
This year been tough for u but I hope u have a better luck next year.
It’s been a tough year but you survived it hun. 8th is not a disgrace,with the probs you’ve had it’s an amazing feat. What with Probs with the bikes and personal tradgedies it’s fantastic.
As we all know you’ll come back fighting in 2008 and I’m sure you’ll be back up there.
And finally remember, we all love you baby boy
Lisa xxxxx