Nicky Hayden, 9th, 1m 40. 389s, 80 laps

“We learned some stuff today, we were able to run pretty decent and consistent laps using reference tyres and we got some good data, so quite a positive day all in all. We had nothing major to test, just some different clutch options to get into the corners a little bit better and some general setup options, looking for a bit of edge traction to help save the tyre over race distance. We’ll come back again tomorrow, get another full day and just work our way through some more options.”

MotoGP Test Results Jerez

1. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’38.679
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’39.117
3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1’39.218
4. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1’39.484
5. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1’39.569
6. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’39.747
7. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’40.034
8. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1’40.116
9. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1’40.389
10. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1’40.394
11. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1’40.534
12. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’41.308
13. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1’41.396
14. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1’42.132
15. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1’42.240
16. Olivier Jacque (FRA) Kawasaki Racing 1’42.562
17. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1’42.624

The weather forecast was fortunately wrong today, and in spite of the strong wind on the Spanish track throughout the day, the MotoGP riders were able to enjoy a completely dry track during the last test at Jerez. Now it is time for a few days’ rest before heading for Qatar at the end of this month. Next 28th and 29th of Febuary the last 2008 pre-season tests will be held in preparation for the Qatar GP, with the peculiarity of being run during the night, the first nocturnal race in the history of the World Motorcycling Championship, which starts this year on March 9th.

After achieving the best time on Saturday and taking third place in yesterday’s timed session, Nicky Hayden leaves the Jerez Circuit leading the time sheet. The Repsol rider was the only rider to achieve times below 1?39 over the three days of training, demonstrating the enormous potential of the Michelin qualification tyres. The American has also been working on the development of his RC212V 2008, with new improvements on the chassis. In total he completed 82 laps on the Andalusian track, again the rider to complete the most laps. His best lap was No. 81, with classification tyres. Hayden also ran a race simulation with satisfactory results according to the rider himself.

Nicky Hayden, fastest lap: 1m 38.848s (lap 81 of 82)

“It’s definitely been a really positive and productive three days. We had high hopes coming here because when we tested here in November the bike worked pretty good and Michelin tyres normally work good at Jerez, so this is a good track for us, also there’s no big long straightaways.

The wind here has made it tough, the conditions haven’t been easy, but I do feel more comfortable on this year’s bike in the wind. The team really worked hard and made some good moves and good decisions. We didn’t make a lot of big changes, we just got closer to race settings, tried a couple of qualifiers and did a 25 lap run. The chassis seems to be working good and also the tyres are working good. We tried a few different tyre options, and we’re still checking data between the 16 and 16.5 rears. But the show hasn’t started yet, we’ll find out what everybody’s really got and what we’re in for when we get to Qatar but we leave here pretty happy. At the Qatar tests we’ll see how it is under the lights and dial everything in for the first race.”

MotoGP Test Times Jerez

1. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1’38.848
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’39.252
3. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1’39.313
4. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1’39.351
5. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’39.568
6. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1’39.727
7. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1’39.845
8. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’39.932
9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’40.333
10. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’40.442
11. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1’40.576
12. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1’41.026
13. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1’41.177
14. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1’41.292
15. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1’41.311
16. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1’41.699
17. Niccolò Canepa (ITA) Ducati Test 1’42.160
18. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1’42.970
19. Olivier Jacque (FRA) Kawasaki Racing 1’43.496
20. Vittoriano Guareschi (ITA) Ducati Marlboro Team 1’45.597

The American was fired up for the 40-minute qualifying-style shootout which was run on a wet track following heavy morning rainfall.

Nicky Hayden is hoping for better weather tomorrow to allow him to continue work on development of the 2008 RC212V machine before they head to Qatar for the final preseason tests on February 28 and 29, one week before the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix.

Nicky Hayden – fastest lap: 1m 50.785s (lap 15 of 16)

“It was fun, because it’s a bit of competition, and not just because there was a car on the line, we could’ve been racing for a piece of bubblegum and everybody would’ve tried just as hard! We’re all competitors and it was pretty fun but conditions were not ideal.

I wish they had been a little more stable, but right at the end when the clock was about to hit zero the conditions were almost at their worst, they were about to go dry. We did our best time a little earlier in the session. We ran full rains throughout, I seen that 49 and knew that was going to be tough, Casey (Stoner) really put one down.

Nonetheless the bike was working pretty good in the rain. I’m not happy about third but for me those intermediate conditions – a little patchy with a dry line starting to form – are about the worst. That’s something I’ve definitely been working on and thinking a lot about, so in some ways I’m happy we did okay in those conditions. Full rain’s normally not too bad for me and the dry’s not bad but that in between bit is quite tricky, so we’ve worked a lot on that.

It’s been a positive day, even this morning in the rain we didn’t have to make any big changes to get the bike reasonable. We were really good in the full wet, the Michelins were working good and there was one front in particular that I liked. We just need to improve some more in those in between conditions.”

MotoGP Test Times Jerez – Day 2

1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1?49.263
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1?50.580
3. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1?50.785
4. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1?50.799
5. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1?51.312
6. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1?51.594
7. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1?51.894
8. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1?51.979
9. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1?52.058
10. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1?52.238
11. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1?52.463
12. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1?52.755
13. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1?52.779
14. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1?52.826
15. Olivier Jacque (FRA) Kawasaki Racing 1?53.283
16. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1?53.292
17. Vittoriano Guareschi (ITA) Ducati Marlboro Team 1?54.694
18. Niccolò Canepa (ITA) Ducati Test 1?57.453
19. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1?57.698

Nicky Hayden, Repsol Honda: 1’39.200 – on lap 84 of 107

“All in all, a pretty positive day. I would definitely say this was the best first day of tests we’ve had so far this year. And we knew it was important, because the weather experts are saying there’s a really good chance of rain the next two days. I tried a different chassis, it felt slightly better with a little more feel on the front, so we used that most of the day and it felt pretty good. We went through a few other things, not making big changes because we’re getting closer to the season now, just a few little settings changes, and when I thought things felt better the stopwatch normally went along with it, which is always good. At the end I did race distance and it didn’t feel too bad. We were able to get into the 40s on race tyres, though we still need to get in there a little deeper, we still need to improve a bit.”

MotoGP Test Times – Day 1

1. Nicky Hayden Honda 1’39.200
2. Randy De Puniet Honda 1’39.444
3. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1’39.528
4. Colin Edwards Yamaha 1’39.629
5. James Toseland Yamaha 1’39.678
6. Alex De Angelis Honda 1’40.165
7. Shinya Nakano Honda 1’40.192
8. Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1’40.641
9. Casey Stoner Ducati 1’40.651
10. Andrea Doviziosi Honda 1’40.767
11. Loris Capirossi Suzuki 1’40.843
12. Dani Pedrosa Honda 1’41.352
13. Marco Melandri Ducati 1’41.392
14. Toni Elias Ducati 1’41.703
15. Chris Vermeulen Suzuki 1’41.763
16. Anthony West Kawasaki 1’41.821
17. John Hopkins Kawasaki 1’41.901
18. Olivier Jacque Kawasaki 1’42.557
19. Niccolo Canepa Ducati 1’42.652
20. Sylvain Guintoli Ducati 1’42.698
21. Vittoriano Guareschi Ducati 1’43.435