Hayden reflects after last gasp fuel shortage

Two years ago at Assen it was Nicky Hayden who benefitted from Colin Edwards´ last lap bad luck as the Texan rider crashed and the Repsol Honda man went on to take a simple victory in his title winning year, but in the 2008 edition of the race on Saturday the roles were reversed.

Having run in third position for the vast majority of the MotoGP contest Hayden was just metres away from the finish line when he ran out of fuel in his pneumatic valve-powered RC212V and Edwards slipped past to take the final podium slot, leaving the Kentucky Kid to glide home fourth.

Afterwards the 2006 World Champion commented, `It would have been a nice feeling to stand on the podium. The team certainly deserves it. I had a lot of problems this weekend with electronics on the bike in the dry and something was wrong from the beginning. I had a bad feeling on the grid that I wasn´t going to finish and on the last lap I felt something go wrong. Then I got close and I thought at least I´m going to get it, then at about that moment it died.´

`It is frustrating because we have the system and it should never run out of fuel. We should always make it across the finish line. On the starting grid a light showed up and I knew something wasn´t calibrating right. The bikes have so much electronics now, sometimes it is not the guy who rides hardest that wins it is the guy who hits the right buttons on his computer.´