Hayden happy with “good base”

Nicky Hayden’s opening session efforts at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix placed the Ducati Team rider seventh fastest by the end of the hour, and the American was satisfied with the base set-up of his Desmosedici GP10 even if the practice did not go entirely as he had anticipated.

“The session didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped but we got a good base and learned a few things,” said Hayden, who was 1.203s off team-mate and quickest rider Casey Stoner. “Casey going so fast is a good thing for us because it shows the potential of the bike at this track even though we know he is really special around here.”

Laguna is a track Hayden knows inside out having won there in both 2005 and 2006, and the American has a firm idea of exactly where the improvements are needed. He continued: “From our side we need to work a little on the gearbox tomorrow because the engine is quite different to what we had last year. It’s maybe something we need to look at tonight.”

“This track is really tricky because there are so many second and third gear corners so we need to find something that works in every one of them.”