Ducati working harder than ever, says Nicky Hayden

Nicky Hayden says Ducati is leaving no stone unturned in its bid to compete at the front again in MotoGP after a dismal opening half of the 2011 world championship.
The Bologna factory has scored just two podiums this season, and both came in somewhat fortuitous circumstances.

American Hayden, who is preparing for his home race at Laguna Seca this weekend, took third place in a rain-lashed Jerez but only because several riders crashed out in front of him and compatriot Colin Edwards suffered a cruel mechanical failure on the last lap.

And Valentino Rossi’s solitary rostrum was also a gift after Dani Pedrosa and Marco Simoncelli’s controversial collision promoted him into the top three in the Le Mans race.

Ducati has already worked tirelessly to solve its problems, which are mainly concentrated around a lack of front-end feel.

Technical boss Filippo Preziosi hurried out an updated GP11 called the GP11.1 in Assen last month, but the radically revised bike hasn’t been the magic wand fix Ducati had hoped for.

Hayden said: “I’ve seen all the work that’s go into rolling out new bikes mid-season, so we can’t ask for much more. I wish the results were better and with a new bike you hope its half-a-second better on the first day. But I’d say they’ve worked harder than I envisioned. There are times when we are doing better than last year but other times it’s not better.”

Ducati’s dire run of results has prompted rumours that Preziosi is working on even more radical solutions, including a conventional Deltabox aluminium frame.

He added: “I know there is always stuff on the board and ideas are being chucked around. They are looking at a couple of other things and we’ve kicked around some ideas.”

Hayden heads home to America this weekend for the Laguna Seca race, but his hopes of repeating his wins of 2005 and ’06 look even more remote than ever.
He added: “Laguna is a track a I love but obviously the gap to the front is a lot. I was 27 seconds behind the winner at a track I love in Germany and I was riding hard.

“I like Sachsenring but I got beat bad. To get beaten by that much definitely stings, so it was a long flight home. I hoped our bike would work better at Sachsenring. Laguna has got bumpy and it feels like the smoother the track the better it is for us, so I wouldn’t say we ‘ve been saving something.”