Benson pragmatic about Hayden´s last lap bad luck

Although Nicky Hayden equalled his best previous result of the season so far in fourth place at Assen the American was frustrated to miss out on his first podium of 2008 as a miscalculation on fuel left him gliding over the finishing line and allowed Colin Edwards to sweep through for third at the death.

It was sweet revenge for Edwards who crashed at the end of the final lap in the Dutch visit in 2006 to hand The Kentucky Kid victory, but Hayden´s chief mechanic Pete Benson remained philosophical about this Saturday´s incident, stating that bedding in the new pneumatic valve engine from HRC was bound to present obstacles at some point.

Racing with the updated motor for just the second time Hayden ran in third for the vast majority of the ninth MotoGP race of the year, but a system failure saw him short of fuel just before the conclusion of the thrilling Assen contest.

`The bike did run out of fuel but it shouldn´t have,´ stated Benson simply. `For some reason the system hasn´t worked quite right which is pretty unfortunate, because another three seconds or fifty metres and it would have been ok.´

`We knew when we took this programme on that there would probably be a few teething problems,´ continued the senior Repsol Honda mechanic. `There was nothing the same on the old engine or the old fuel system. Everything is completely different, so we sort of figured there would be a few issues. It is just unfortunate that when you are going that well that you get an issue like that right at the end.´

On Hayden´s recent upturn in overall competitiveness since receiving the new engine and an updated chassis, Benson added, `All the guys on our side are always behind Nicky. They are really happy that things are starting to go better and Nicky is starting to get the stuff that he wants to do a good job. So it has definitely made a big difference on our side of the garage.´