2006 MotoGP world champion Hayden was charging hard, moving through the pack from seventh place on the first place, picking off rivals here and there until he found himself in fourth place just after half way. The American had been chipping away at the leading group, closing a few tenths every lap, until he lost the front and fell going into turn seven on lap 17. His pace had been impressive, good enough for the third fastest lap of the race.

Nicky Hayden; DNF, 10th in World Championship

“The first few laps were certainly not easy, some parts of the track were a little wetter than others and I had on a pretty hard tyre. I had been choosing between that tyre and another a little bit softer, but with the way the weather’s been this weekend we really hadn’t got to do a lot of endurance on the harder one.

I got settled in, and the warmer I was getting the tyres the better they were working and I was able to start moving up, so things were feeling pretty good. I made a few passes, I’d just got into fourth, felt like I wanted to close the gap on the guys in front of me. You know, I got fourth place at Jerez and I certainly didn’t want to settle in there and ride around, so I had to push hard and you know when you push hard you make mistakes. It’s not a parade you can’t just cruise around.

The bike was working good, the tyres were working good, I felt pretty comfortable, so I was pushing. Turn seven’s downhill, certainly a trick corner, the front let go pretty early and down I went. It’s unfortunate because the bike was working good and we were hungry for a good result, so my own mistake. We just have to step it up a bit.”

DNF

Andrea Dovizioso ITA JiR Scot Team
Nicky Hayden USA Repsol Honda

Nicky Hayden today gave another fine perfromance on his Repsol Honda RC212V 2008, confirming the visible improvements he made a fortnight ago in Jerez. The Repsol rider was third in the free training session, finally falling to fourth – second row on the starting grid – in the timed sessions.

Nicky Hayden – 1’36.266 secs, 55 laps, 230 Km.

“We’re right there, but just missing that last little bit. Everything went relatively smooth today, though I definitely thought we were capable of being on the front row – bike, tyres, even the rider – but we just didn’t get it done. Race pace I don’t think we’re a long way off but definitely we could do with a bit more.

The Michelin tyres are working good, the bike’s good, we just need to get it better in the slow changes of direction. My ideal time had me third. On one of my fast laps I had to follow Toseland, when he wasn’t on a fast lap, through turn five and into six, which kinda ruined that lap. At the time I was pretty fired up about it. He was man enough to come and apologise, but at the time I didn’t want to hear sorry. It happens though, I’m sure I’ve got in somebody’s way, and I can get over it, it’s no big thing. It should be a good race, so long as no one’s sandbagging too much this week. Be nice to be on the podium, see what the weather does and see if we can get it done.”

Nicky Hayden – 4th fastest – 1’38.688

“Everything went pretty well, it’s been quite a positive day, I think we had a pretty good start to things. Sure we’re gonna have to improve a little bit, but seems like in the wet and dry we got a bike working relatively well, so if we can sweeten up a few things tomorrow, hopefully we can really be up there come Sunday. More or less the bike was working okay without a lot of big changes, so we’re running a pretty similar setup to what I ran at Jerez, just a few little clickers here and there. Conditions were not easy, the morning was wet, then half and half and the afternoon was a little bit patchy and windy, so sure it was quite challenging, but the team’s done a good job and we’ve got a pretty decent setup, so we’ll see tomorrow.”

The Kentucky Kid spent two further days at Jerez testing components, tyres and setup options that should put him in even better shape at Estoril.Nicky Hayden set the fastest lap of the tests while evaluating Michelin rear tyres and some new clutch parts for smoother corner entries.

Estoril is a complex and tricky circuit with some dramatic contrasts – the chicane is MotoGP’s slowest corner and the kink onto the back straight is one of the fastest. Riders need a well-balanced machine that is manageable in slower turns and stable in the fast sweepers, with good top speed for the 320km/h-199mph main straight and excellent braking stability.

Nicky Hayden is the current Estoril lap record holder and also took pole position at last year’s event. Honda has won five of the eight premier-class GPs staged at the track since 2002.

Nicky Hayden

“Hopefully we’ve got things rolling now. Jerez wasn’t bad, good enough to make me look forward to Estoril where we’ll be working to keep going forward. It’s is an old-school track, it’s a strange little place, not very wide and kinda odd. It can be a lot of fun or it can be miserable. It’s got that little bus-stop chicane which is probably the slowest corner in MotoGP, but I really like the right-hand kink onto the back straightaway, that’s pretty fast and cool. And I love the last corner coming onto the front straightaway – when the bike works good and steers through there it can be pretty fun. Obviously you want something with some horsepower because the front straightaway goes on for days. And you need something to get through the tight, twisty bits. One other thing, there’s definitely a lot more right-handers, so you need softer compounds on the left side of the tyres.”