Packed first session for home star Hayden

Nicky Hayden was the fastest home rider in the first practice at Indianapolis on Friday, and by the end of the hour the Ducati Team rider was left to evaluate what had been an eventful session.

The 29 year-old’s best effort of 1’41.405 placed him third on the timesheet before he had a crash with just under 15 minutes remaining, and he managed to return to the track on his second machine just before the close of play.

"At the start of the session I was feeling really good and I was going quite fast on a hard tyre,” said Hayden. “When we put the soft tyre in I felt even better and maybe got a little too excited because that's when I made a mistake. I was off line a little but I didn't force it, I just let it go because it's only first practice but 'bam'! I was down immediately. It was a bummer because my suspension guy had come up with some settings that were working really good and I really liked the feel.”

Fortunately for the rider and his team he managed to avoid aggravating the chipped radius bone in his left arm that he suffered in Brno almost two weeks ago.

“At least I didn't do any more damage to the wrist - all I got was a friction burn on my arm from digging it in trying to save the wrist,” he explained. “It's nothing major though and after finding a good base setting today I'm looking forward to possibly trying the new forks tomorrow."

Team-mate Casey Stoner, who set the fastest time of the opening session, tried the new front suspension first run at the Brno test last week and reported a positive feeling.