Estoril MotoGP: Nicky Hayden delighted with Portugal pole position

Reigning MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden has spoken of his joy at claiming his first pole position of the season in Estoril today.

The American though admitted he needs to drastically up his race pace to have a hope of fighting Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi for victory in tomorrow’s 28-lap race.

The 26-year-old though was at least pleased to bury some of his Estoril demons with his first pole since last year’s Australian GP in Phillip Island.

Twelve months ago Hayden endured a nightmare when he thought his world championship dreams had been crushed when team-mate Dani Pedrosa rammed him off track to hand the world championship initiative to Rossi.

Only a shock blunder by Rossi in the season’s final race in Valencia handed Hayden the title, but the Repsol Honda rider said he had hardly thought about last year’s incident during this weekend.

“Last year it was a nightmare and now it is almost like a dream to be on pole after the way some things have gone this year. I guess this place owes me one.

“I’m not really thinking about last year, but if I see Dani coming up the inside I might have a few flashbacks.

“The first day I was here I ran the track with my trainer and we laughed when we got to that corner. It brought back a lot of memories and that’s where it all went down literally.

”That’s what I love about racing. You can’t predict this game. I think as I’ve learned this year and even last year after Portugal that the bottom line is you can’t give up. You got to keep coming back no matter how deep it seems.

“Last year I thought it was over and sometimes I’ve been 15th this year and thinking ‘what am I going to do? But I’ve hung in their and its fun to be back up front, “said Hayden, who slashed a massive two seconds off his best time on race tyres with his second Michelin qualifier.

That has given Hayden some concern though, highlighting that his pace needs to be faster on race rubber to pose a serious threat to Stoner tomorrow, with the Aussie chasing a fourth successive victory.

“My race pace wasn’t great today. The bike was good with the qualifying tyre but to drop two seconds just shows it means we need to find more traction on the race set-up, “said Hayden, who like Rossi has been supplied with a new front and two new rear tyres in Portugal.

Rear traction is still Hayden’s prime concern and he told MCN: “Most of the long corners where it’s not so hard on the throttle its ok, but getting off some of the slower corners its not good enough.

”We need to get the bike more stable in the slower corners so I can get it turned, picked up and accelerate.

“The balance of the new rear is not as good. In parts it wasn’t as predictable and we are not sure about endurance. I haven’t done a lot of endurance on it.”

Hayden though was delighted with the performance of his Michelin qualifying tyre as he beat Stoner to pole by just 0.40s with a best lap of 1.36.301.

He added: “I don’t know if I’ve had a qualifier that worked better than today. It’s thanks to my Michelin guy. Thursday afternoon I met with him at lunch and we had our tyres picked.

”By the time we met again that evening we’d gone for something a little bit softer and it proved too be good. We were worried if it would go the whole lap but it made it.”

Hayden said he just wants to have fun tomorrow and at least mount a threat to Stoner, who has won the last three races with embarrassing ease.

He said: “It would be nice to mix it up front. Lately it seems like every time somebody gets close to Casey the dude just finds another gear and speeds up.

“He’s been riding the wheels off it lately so hopefully we can put some heat on there and be fighting up front.”