Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden made a strong start to the Spanish GP weekend today, ending the first two practice sessions fourth fastest.

Nicky Hayden’s best lap times were around lap record pace and less than half a second off today’s fastest lap. Nicky Hayden used a new spec chassis to achieve his best times of the day and prefers the new unit’s characteristics. Tomorrow the Repsol Honda rider will concentrate on longer tyre runs aboard the RC212Vs to prepare for Sunday’s race, round two of the 18-event 2008 MotoGP season.

Nicky Hayden, fourth fastest, 1m 40.673s

“We’re certainly a lot closer than we were at Qatar, which makes it a lot more fun. We were on top for part of the session, stayed up near the front a lot and we made a pretty big step between morning and afternoon, almost a half second. Overall the bikes seem not so bad and Michelins always work good at Jerez. We had a pretty good set-up from when we here for the tests in February, so tyre-wise, bike-wise, it’s not a lot different, though I did try a new chassis that definitely seemed to help, and I made my best lap times with it. We’re going to talk about running both bikes with the new chassis tomorrow. Every-thing’s pretty smooth so far, so big thanks to HRC for bringing me an improvement and to the team for everything. But it’s still early, there’s a lot of guys going fast, so we’ll see where we’re at come Sunday.”