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.

I got a pretty good start but there were a few places on the lap where I was too weak and this made it quite a difficult race for me. I got past Melandri and held on to fourth for as long as I could but then to lose four places in the last five or six laps was tough to take.

Still, the season’s in the books and we’ll start over with testing on Tuesday – it’s been a tough year so now we’ll go back to work.

Thanks to the team for all their hard work this year – everybody at Honda, Michelin, my mechanics and everyone who’s been behind me this year. We’re going to keep working hard so we can do a lot better in 2008.”

DNF
Valentino Rossi ITA Yamaha
Kurtis Roberts USA Honda KR

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.

Whatever happens, I’d like to dedicate this performance to Merlyn Plumlee, my mechanic from AMA superbike who died from cancer last week. He will be sadly missed and I’m definitely thinking about him and his family.”

On the cooler track we’re having a hard time getting the tyres to work as I would like. However, we’ve made a bit of progress today and I definitely hope that tomorrow I can do a lot better personally, and that we can also make some changes to get the bike to work the tyres more effectively.

We don’t seem to have the grip that I need at the moment so we’ll see what other options Michelin has available and work on the settings too. There’s still a long way to go this weekend and the two hours of practice tomorrow will be crucial. Qualifying is going to be really important too so we’ll be looking to come out a lot stronger tomorrow.”

* time set in FP1.

Nicky Hayden is relishing his return to the scene of his extraordinary World Championship victory last year. Few can forget the emotional conclusion to the spectacular 2006 season where the American overturned an eight-point deficit to Valentino Rossi and clinched his first world title. While 2007 hasn’t gone to plan for Hayden, he has regained front-running pace in recent races and that, combined with his confidence at the Valencia circuit, should make him a real threat this weekend. The 26-year-old likes Valencia and has a good recent record here, having finished second in 2005 and third last year.

There are certainly more challenging and scenic circuits on the MotoGP calendar than Valencia, but its status as the final race of the season combined with the jubilant atmosphere generated by the vast and passionate race-day crowd guarantees that the Grand Prix of Valencia is a special occasion. Last year’s attendance for the weekend was a stunning 233,399 fans, with 129,466 of those witnessing Hayden’s ride to the world title on race day. Largely characterised by tight second and third gear corners, the left-handed track keeps the MotoGP riders busy as they thread their 210+ bhp machines through Valencia’s relentless sequence of turns.

The race weekend begins on Friday with two hour-long practice sessions, before a further hour of practice on Saturday morning is following by qualifying in the afternoon. Sunday’s 30-lap race begins at 2pm local time.

Nicky Hayden previews at the GP of Valencia 

“Well here we are on our way to Valencia and I can’t quite believe it’s the last race of the year. I’m really looking forward to this weekend but actually I’m not that happy the season is nearly over because we’ve had decent pace in the last few races and in some ways I wish the season was starting again, not ending. Obviously the season hasn’t gone exactly as I’d have liked and I wish there was some more races to go.

Nonetheless, I’m really looking forward to going back to Valencia because the circuit has a special place in my heart with everything that went down there last year. On top of that I just like the track and the way it’s laid out in such a tight area. It’s a track I’ve gone well at in the past and certainly it’s our last chance of the season so we’ll try to go out with style. It’ll be my last race with the number one plate this year so I’ll definitely be pushing as hard as always. To be honest I can’t wait for the weekend to begin.”