Hayden happy to have taken points

Nicky Hayden displayed the kind of determination that has run throughout his 2010 season when on Sunday he rode to sixth place at Brno despite a chipped radius bone in his left arm.

The Ducati Team rider had a fall in qualifying on Saturday that resulted in the injury to the tip of the bone near his wrist, but impressively rode to his race result from eighth on the grid. Hayden had hoped for more after a positive start to the weekend on his Desmosedici GP10, but following the injury was satisfied to have collected the points.

“The weekend started out well and I thought we’d be able to have a good one, but the crash in qualifying messed things up a bit in terms of the grid position and the broken bone,” said Hayden, who now has 99 points and is sixth in the Championship standings after ten rounds.

“Considering those factors the result isn’t a disaster, even though on paper sixth looks like another average result. When I woke up I knew it would be a hard day. Sixth is not great but it could have been worse – we salvaged some points and are still going for it.”

It was a courageous effort from Hayden who only took a light dose of painkillers so as not to lose the feeling in his left hand for the race. “Adrenaline more than anything blocked out the pain!” he said.

“For a couple of laps I was running in fifth. There were a few places in braking where it was hurting, and also in changes of direction, but for the last few laps it didn’t feel that bad! When I crossed the finish line I realised it must have been the adrenaline though because it started to hurt again!”

Hayden returned to the Brno track on Monday morning to conduct the first half of the official one-day test, trying out new front forks on his Ducati which could now be used for the next round at Indianapolis. Due to his physical condition the American closed his test at the midday point having completed 38 laps with a best time of 1’57.991.