Nicky Hayden took tenth place in the opening round of the 2008 World Championship in Qatar while MotoGP made history as the first night-time GP in six decades of GP racing, the 5.38km/3.43 mile Losail circuit illuminated by a 5.4 million watt lighting rig.

Nicky Hayden had an altogether tough night. The 2006 MotoGP World Champion qualified on the second row of the grid yesterday but was unable to maintain a front-running pace in the race, slipping to 12th at one point before taking the flag in tenth. The American rode a 2007 RC212V.

Nicky Hayden - Position: 10th

“It wasn’t pretty for sure. We wanted more than just top ten but we struggled here from the time we rolled out at the tests. We haven’t really made much progress and it hasn’t been for a lack of effort, these guys have worked really hard. We got beat bad today so we’ve obviously got a lot of work to do.

I got a decent start but I couldn’t push the way I wanted to, couldn’t be aggressive and couldn’t make anything happen, so I kinda went backwards then I went forward again. I was spinning a lot, which definitely didn’t do the rear tyre any favours, I really think we just missed the setup and worked the tyre way too hard so I was spinning way too much. It honestly wasn’t the most fun race but there’s still a lot of racing to go so we’ll try and brush this one off and definitely try to move up at Jerez.”