Nicky Hayden keeps on progressing; a light crash does not hinder Dani Pedrosa from improving his fastest time of yesterday by more than half a second.
Low temperatures and wind hindered a normal development of this second day of the official MotoGP Tests at the Circuit de Catalunya. Despite the forecasts predicting rain for the afternoon, the intense wind managed to sent the black clouds away.
In the Repsol Honda Team garage all team members who played the leading role yesterday, together with Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden at the teams presentation to the media had a really hard working day, with hardly any rest: time passes quickly and the first Grand Prix is getting closer. Nicky Hayden, still immersed in the evolution of the new RC211V 2006, looks a lot more optimistic as regards the potential of his new bike these days in Barcelona. His eight fastest time of the day – fifth yesterday may not be the most positive aspect of his work today, but Hayden is progressing day by day and trusts in the strength of his team.
Team-mate Dani Pedrosa suffered today his first crash in the dry he crashed for the first time three weeks ago in Australia, and it was raining but it was fortunately nothing serious and he is OK. Pedrosa crashed at the Repsol corner during the braking manoeuvre; the front tyre slid and the young rider crashed. Despite the incident, Dani continued with his testing plan in the afternoon using his second bike, and even managed to improve the times set in the morning. Nicky Hayden, eighth fastest at the end of the day, covered a total of 87 laps (411 kms) and Dani Pedrosa, tenth fastest today, made 33 laps, covering 148 kms.
Dani Pedrosa:
‘Fortunately it didnt rain today we thought there would be rain showers but the wind was very strong. I crashed while I was improving my time and my pace. Thats been a problem, because it was just the time when I was crossing a border. The bike broke up into pieces and I had to take the other. I lost two good hours, those with the highest temperatures of the day. It was my mistake because I crashed while having my hand on the brake and that means that I was pressing too hard. Well, these things are good to learn from, as long as you dont hurt yourself; fortunately I only have a strong headache. We improved today compared to yesterday and thats good, because although were not in the front, we are on a different circuit. We had got used to Malaysia and the times were good there. Now were in a different circuit, much colder; there are new difficulties here, difficulties we didnt have in Malaysia. Its a new experience. ‘
Nicky Hayden:
‘Were making progress, but not as fast as we would like. We lost some time today. We tested some new components and we tried to make everything work, looking for different solutions, but in the end we had to go back to what we had. Its been a bit frustrating because we expected it to be a big step forward and it wasnt. But were positive and try to make things work better. There is a lot left to do, although were progressing, thats encouraging, but not as fast as we were expecting.’
