Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden stayed on at Le Mans today for a busy day of testing following yesterday’s French Grand Prix. The Kentucky Kid focused on evaluating Michelin tyres and different chassis set-up solutions in preparation for the next MotoGP event at Mugello, Italy, on June 1. Hard-working Hayden used race tyres throughout his impressive run of 113 laps. Mugello is the first of a quick-fire run of six races over eight weekends. Hayden’s next duty, however, is this coming weekend, when he will ride a demo lap aboard a 2007 RC212V just before the start of the huge Indy 500 car race to promote September’s inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP event.

Nicky Hayden, fastest lap: 1m 34.752s (113 laps)

“It was a hard weekend, today we found a couple of band aids for the problems we’ve had here. We only tested with race tyres and we improved our pace. I was able to go quicker than we went yesterday but still not enough. We tried a lot of solutions and I can’t really say we really found any cures for the braking stability and for getting the bike to enter the corner better. We went through a lot of stuff which at least we can now rule out. We tried mainly setting changes and a few tyres, which could possibly work well for us at other tracks, which we needed to get a little bit of data on. It looked like the sky could open up any time, it stayed dry but it wasn’t a day for the beach! I feel a little better now, so hopefully Mugello will go smoother for us.”