Top American no consolation for Hayden

Nicky Hayden was left frustrated by his fifth place finish at Laguna Seca on Sunday, having missed out on a podium spot by 1.181s in his home GP. The Ducati Team rider was hopeful of his first top-three finish of 2010 at a circuit he won at in 2005 and 2006, but found his attempts to push for such a result hindered.

“Fifth place here doesn’t feel good enough. I got a terrible start, like in the last three or four races, and it’s a problem where the bike almost dies. I lost a lot of positions and my pace was missing something to go with those guys,” explained Hayden.

“At the end I was able to bring them back a little bit, my last few laps were basically my qualifying pace, and I was over the limit. I just needed Rossi and Dovizioso to cross one another one time. To try and get on the podium would have been great!”

It was not through a lack of trying from either Hayden or his team that he missed out on a top three. He continued: “I rode hard and overall the bike was better in the race than it has been all weekend, the team helped me a lot in turn one so a big thanks to them. I know those first two years (2005 and 2006) at Laguna were a lot more fun!”

Hayden did come out on top in a fine battle with Ben Spies for the honour of finishing the race as the top American rider, but it was of little consolation to him.

“I made a couple of little mistakes early on but the bottom line is I took fifth and I’m not going to make any excuses – nobody has the perfect bike or race,” he said. “To be a second or so within the podium again is not good, so we can’t be happy with that. We can say the team tried hard and I rode hard today… there wasn’t a lot left in me.”