Hayden: Front straight is definitely a lot better here compared to what we had last year!

Nicky Haden came away from Qatar pleased to have been able to get closer to the front on the Open Honda but once again disappointed to have finished down the timesheets in 16th position. The new bike is an obvious improvement over last year’s machine but with the MotoGP field having grown even more competitive it’s not been a big enough step to put Hayden into a more competitive position.

“The front straight is definitely a lot better here compared to what we had last year! For the rest of the track…there’s not really a huge difference between the bikes,” said Hayden when asked how the bikes compare in Qatar.

Having been mileage restricted throughout the winter Hayden completed 91 laps in Qatar but with rain having washed out the final day he wasn’t able to complete a race simulation. Summing up his test Hayden said:

“It was a good day because we improved the laptime by over a second and the feeling and consistency was better. I’m happy about that but it’s still P16, the times are really close so it’s exciting that over a two minute lap that we’re 1.1s off. The gap here is always a lot closer to Sepang, the laptimes in Malaysia are always a bigger spread, so I expected things to get closer here.”