Doha disaster for champ

Nicky Hayden suffered a nightmare second day in Qatar as the reigning world champion crashed his new Honda RC212V twice to slump to 11th fastest.

The American lost the front both times – the first coming this morning at the final corner. Switching to his spare bike he then suffered a rare Honda engine failure, and trying to gain some positives from his nightmare day, the 25-year-old crashed again late in the afternoon at Turn 2.

The factory Repsol Honda rider clocked a best of 1.57.629 this morning and was 0.2s slower in this afternoon’s session where he was only 12th quickest.

Hayden, who only crashed twice all year in his title-winning campaign last season, said: “It sucked and it isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. Honestly we don’t know what caused it. 

“We spent a lot of time going over the data and haven’t really been able to draw any conclusions. It was a tough day at the office that’s for sure when you think I crashed twice all year last season and one of them wasn’t my fault.”

Hayden’s best time was 0.6s slower than he managed yesterday when he’d started in positive fashion with the fifth best time.