Hayden stays with Honda

Nicky Hayden has just signed a new two-year deal with Honda’s official factory MotoGP team, ending speculation he will leave Repsol Honda.

The deal has just been announced in the last 15 minutes by HRC president Suguru Kanazawa at a special Honda RCV technical presentation at the Twin Ring Motegi. The American signed a deal this afternoon at 3.30pm localtime in Japan.

It ends a long-running contract saga with the 25-year-old title-leader, who rejected a rumoured two-million dollar pay rise to join Valentino Rossi in Yamaha’s factory squad. Hayden was at the special briefing and he said: “I am really happy and I want to thank Honda.

“This team has been my home for the last few years both in GPs and in America. I didn’t want to change anything and at the end we all came together to do a new deal.

“I did have some really good offers but I was straight-up with Honda. A few weeks ago I was a little nervous about how it would all turn out. But Honda met me in the middle and I think we’ve made a very fair deal. A few weeks ago we had a few issues, and because it’s my future, I really had to sit down and consider everything. But my big goals for this year were to re-sign with Honda and to win the championship.”

Edwards is now said to be “90%” certain to stay with Camel Yamaha, but the firm is said to be very disappointed that its bid to sign Hayden has come to nothing for the second time.