Hayden ambivalent about Jerez fourth place
Monday, 31 March 2008
Nicky Hayden bounced back from his Qatar nightmare race to take a creditable fourth place in the Gran Premio bwin.com de España.
Nicky Hayden bounced back from his Qatar nightmare race to take a creditable fourth place in the Gran Premio bwin.com de España. The Repsol Honda rider had a fantastic start when the lights went out, but a few mistakes cost the 2006 World Champion a podium position and meant that Hayden couldn´t go home as happy as he would have liked.
`Myself and everybody at Repsol Honda work too hard to be thrilled about a fourth place, but it was obviously a huge step up from Qatar,´ reflected the `Kentucky Kid´.
`We thought that we´d have a shot at the podium, then I lost a little ground, but finally I thought that we´d be able to put our name into the hat. It´s not great, but we´ll definitely try and build on this one and move forward.´
Hayden could have seen his race turn sour, had he not made a fantastic save to prevent an RC212V lowside in a nervous moment.
`I was pushing and pushing, and when I tried to overtake Lorenzo I just held on a little too long on the brakes. I just about put it on the ground, but I wasn´t going to give up on it until I was in the gravel. Michelin´s front tyre works pretty good, and that saved it.´
After two days of testing in Jerez, Hayden will head to Indianapolis in his homeland at the end of the week, where next Monday he will ride a 1909 Indian bike around the newest circuit on the MotoGP calendar.
