Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden ended a tough weekend at Laguna Seca this afternoon with a determined ride to fifth place. The American was the Repsol Honda team’s sole representative in the US GP after team-mate Dani Pedrosa yesterday withdrew due to the severity of the injuries he suffered in Germany last Sunday.

Hayden made a great start from the front row of the grid, holding third place for the first seven laps. He then spent the middle stage of the race battling for fourth place with Andrea Dovizioso, eventually finishing just behind the Italian. Hayden won this race in 2005 and 2006 but today he recorded his fastest-ever Laguna race time, 25 seconds quicker than his winning 2006 pace. He was a non-finisher last year.

Pedrosa flew home to Barcelona yesterday and will spend the sport’s traditional summer break recuperating from his injuries in order to be in the best-possible shape for the next race at Brno in the Czech Republic on August 17.

Nicky Hayden, finished fifth, eighth in World Championship

“Obviously at my home race I’d hoped to be able to put up a better fight than that. It was certainly a tough weekend, we struggled a bit with the tyres we had available. We really had only two race tyres, the one I used in practice I kept using again and again, I used it Friday, Saturday and again this morning, by the end it had 35 laps on it. I think I learned a good lesson, we set up the bike on quite old tyres. In the race when we put in a grippy new race tyre the balance of the bike changed a lot, so it was pushing the front in a lot of places. I would’ve liked to have been closer to the front but I think we learned a good lesson. Now we’ve got a few weeks off, so we’ll regroup and try to finish the year strong. Hopefully I can improve and they can do some work in Japan.”

Kazuhiko Yamano - Team Manager

“It was a difficult race today and Nicky kept fighting, first for the podium and then for fourth position. In the end he finished fifth and this is not the result we expected and that we were fighting for. Anyway, after a difficult weekend, Nicky and the team did a good job. Now we look forward to going to Brno after the three-week break with the complete Repsol Honda duo and fighting for the podium with both riders.”