Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden finished eighth in today’s rain-affected French GP at Le Mans. The Kentucky Kid’s off-track excursion at the Garage Vert corner dropped him to tenth on lap 14, the American gaining two places as rivals hit problems.

The Repsol Honda Team will test here tomorrow, focusing on chassis settings and tyre testing with Michelin. Hayden will then travel back to the US where next weekend he will ride a demo lap aboard a 2007 RC212V before the start of the huge Indy 500 car race to promote September’s inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP event.

Nicky Hayden

“That wasn’t too pretty. All weekend we’ve been missing something, the pace hasn’t been there. I got a good start and recovered a couple of positions but couldn’t go with the group I needed to go with. I was hanging in there, then I ran off the track in turn six, got in just a little bit hot, didn’t make it and that lost me three positions. I came back on, had a little dice with Loris over the last few laps but it wasn’t the result we wanted.

It was definitely tough conditions, it wasn’t just a few drops of rain it was straight-up raining through some parts of the track. With the tyres being that hot the lap times didn’t suffer too bad, but I was kinda hoping the rain would come down and let us swap bikes and try something different, but it didn’t happen. This has never been an easy track for me, I’d say Le Mans is the worst track for me on the calendar. Tomorrow we’ll work on chassis stuff. I need to try getting some momentum going, especially for the tracks I really love that are coming up. I need to be strong when I get to them, I need to use the people around me to find what I need.”