Nicky Hayden put up a valiant fight today. The 2006 World Champion was second from the start and held third place for the first three laps as he extracted the maximum performance from his RC212V.
It was always an uphill struggle for the 26-year-old American who had battled grip issues for the entire weekend. Nicky Hayden duelled with Marco Melandri for two thirds of the race but in the final ten laps he couldn’t maintain the pace and slipped to eighth at the finish. Despite this the Kentucky Kid climbed one place in the World Championship today to finish in eighth overall.
With the 18-race 2007 season over, preparations for 2008 begin immediately with the Repsol Honda Team remaining at Valencia for two days of testing, beginning on Tuesday.
Nicky Hayden about his race
“Well, we knew all weekend that we were on the back foot and the race proved it. We made a lot of changes for warm-up this morning and the package felt a bit better, but still we didn’t have the pace we needed for the race. Click here to read more
1. Dani Pedrosa SPA Honda 25 points
2. Casey Stoner AUS Ducati 20 points
3. John Hopkins USA Suzuki 16 points
4. Marco Melandri ITA Honda 13 points
5. Loris Capirossi ITA Ducati 11 points
6. Chris Vermeulen AUS Suzuki 10 points
7. Alex Barros BRA Ducati 9 points
8. Nicky Hayden USA Honda 8 points Click here to read more
“When I put the qualifiers on, the bike was really good and fun to ride – that was by far the most fun I’ve had this weekend and I dropped my lap time by two and a half seconds. But it’s honestly been a bit of a nightmare this weekend up to now.
For whatever reason I cannot get the race tyres to work for me here. I’ve had a lot of luck with the 16-inch rear tyre at the last few races but at Valencia it’s been really tough. Still, I’ve got some good guys around me and an excellent team so we’ll definitely be trying something huge to improve things for tomorrow.
Being on the front row is a big advantage here, though I know these guys are going to make it tough. Race day is always a different story and anything can happen so we’ll just try to stick our nose in there, put a bid in and try to finish off the year really well. I’m excited about the race – I wish I was quicker on race tyres but we’ll see what happens when the light goes out. Click here to read more
1. Dani Pedrosa SPA Honda 1?31.517
2. Casey Stoner AUS Ducati 1?31.603
3. Nicky Hayden USA Honda 1?31.903
4. Randy de Puniet FRA Kawasaki 1?31.963
5. Sylvain Guintoli FRA Yamaha 1?32.074
6. Makoto Tamada JPN Yamaha 1?32.151
7. John Hopkins USA Suzuki 1?32.165
8. Loris Capirossi ITA Ducati 1?32.261 Click here to read more
1. Sylvain Guintoli FRA Yamaha 1?32.670
2. Casey Stoner AUS Ducati 1?33.132
3. Dani Pedrosa SPA Honda 1?33.236
4. Alex Barros BRA Ducati 1?33.239
5. Marco Melandri ITA Honda 1?33.240
6. Loris Capirossi ITA Ducati 1?33.407
7. Randy de Puniet FRA Kawasaki 1?33.487
8. John Hopkins USA Suzuki 1?33.505 Click here to read more
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MotoGP 2007 Season
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12, 16, 26, 6