MotoGPMotorcycles

Hayden Shines For Ducati In Friday Practice

1 Mins read
Nicky Hayden - Photo Credit: Bridgestone Motorsport

Nicky Hayden - Photo Credit: Bridgestone Motorsport


Nicky Hayden
produced one of the major surprises of Friday practice at Motegi as he finished sixth fastest for Ducati, just half a second shy of the dominant Repsol Hondas. The American also starred in the morning session, finishing third fastest ahead of the factory Yamahas, before being pipped by Lorenzo in the afternoon.

Hayden was encouraged by the early performance of the GP11.1 and is desperate to reward the hard working Ducati mechanics with a good result on Sunday.

“I had fun riding the bike today, and that's important. This morning was really encouraging, because I could ride comfortably, and we really haven't made many changes throughout the day. I've steadily got a little bit faster, but the others made a bigger jump in the afternoon. I've certainly had worse Fridays this year, but we've got a long way to go if we want to be near the front on Sunday afternoon. We've got a couple of small ideas to try to improve the bike under braking. As hard as Ducati has worked to try to help us, it would be really nice to give them a result they deserve.”

Teammate Valentino Rossi was half a second further back in eighth after choosing not to run the softer tyre in FP2 and feels much happier with the GP11.1 than he did at Aragon two weeks ago.

“We made progress with the bike throughout the day, and as a result we improved our lap times, dropping below 1:48. The pace is still far from the top, but not bad for now. There are a number of things to resolve, but we're definitely not in the situation we were at Aragon, where we always had big problems with rear grip. That's not the case here. We worked on weight distribution, loading the front a little more, and it's better. Tomorrow we must try to drop into the low 1:47 range. That's our goal. Nicky is already there, although he chose to ride mainly with the soft tyre. The track is good. The asphalt has good grip, and they did a good job.”

Avatar photo
5101 posts

About author
MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 and WorldSBK writer for The Checkered Flag. Contact: [email protected]
Articles
Related posts
Circuit NewsMotorcycles

Pol Tarres breaks own bike altitude world record

1 Mins read
Yamaha’s rally raid ace Pol Tarrés set the world record for the highest altitude climb on a bike when he ascended 6,677 metres up Ojos del Salado on his Ténéré World Raid.
MotoGPNASCAR Cup Series

Trackhouse Racing Team entering MotoGP in 2024

1 Mins read
NASCAR Cup Series team Trackhouse Racing will become a MotoGP team in 2024 as they partner with Aprilia to field bikes for Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez.
Circuit NewsMotorcycles

FIM ban on Russians, Belarusians to continue into 2024

2 Mins read
As Moscow’s three-day war on Ukraine extends into its 651st day, its riders as well as Minsk’s will remain barred from competing in FIM-sanctioned events through at least the start of 2024.