Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden stormed to a front-row start at Motegi this afternoon, signalling his intention to play a leading role in tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix.

The American ended the qualifying session third fastest, just four tenths off pole position, despite having to ride two full-speed laps on his final set of Michelin qualifiers after he had been baulked by a group of slower riders at the start of his final run. A good grid position is vital at Motegi because the first corner is tight and close to the start.

This is Hayden’s third front-row start of the year, after Catalunya and Laguna Seca, Two weeks ago at Indianapolis he recorded his first podium finish of the year with a great ride to second.

Nicky Hayden, 3rd fastest, 1′45.971

“Honda’s home race, we’re on the front row which is nice, now we’ve got to try and get a result. Yesterday the bike didn’t feel good, balance and all. We made some pretty good changes overnight. A lot of the time when you make changes, in theory they should do this or that but a lot of the time it don’t work out like that, but today everything worked like we thought it would, so my guys did some good work. My race pace is decent but not great, we need to improve tomorrow morning if we want to turn it into a result, which is the plan. My first qualifier went good, my second I didn’t really improve, the third one I did improve, then the fourth felt really good. But going into turn three there was a pack of riders, so I just had to shut it down. I went hard enough for the rest of that lap to keep heat in the tyres and then tried to pull the trigger again. Luckily I was able to get two laps out of it, though the last little bit of the second lap the right side started to go. The Michelin qualifiers were really good today, so I just held on to squeeze on to the front row. That’s important here especially because in the past there’s been plenty of carnage at the first turn. We’ll try to improve the bike in morning, try to get away with them, then see what we got.”

Kazuhiko Yamano - Team Manager

“Nicky and his team have done a great job here. His machine and the Michelin tyres are working very well, so he could make the front row, and it is very important to start from the front here. His pace on race tyres is also good. After his podium at Indy he is very motivated to fight for the win here.”