The Repsol Honda Team completed its second day of testing at Motegi today. Nicky Hayden collected more valuable data for the final three races of the 2007 season. The team continued to check and test Michelin’s latest tyres and did further tests with a new fairing and clutch. At the end of the day Hayden had done 89 laps and cut his fastest Motegi lap time down to 1m 47.277s – an improvement of 0.617 seconds on yesterday`s best lap time.
After races on two consecutive weekends, immediately followed by two days of testing, the Repsol Honda team now takes a break before its next date. The back-to-back Australian and Malaysian GPs take place on October 14th and October 21st. The final race of the season in Valencia, is scheduled for November 4th.
Nicky Hayden
Best lap time: 1m 47.277s – 89 laps
“Well, we almost had Motegi to ourselves – there weren’t a lot of riders here today. We did a lot more work today, testing the new fairing and some clutch parts. These were not parts we will use this year but are probably for next season. Things worked pretty well and we were able to start putting a few 1m 47s laps in one after the other and I was able to lower my times even more than at the weekend. We also tested some Michelins and I found a front tyre that was better for me. With the tyre rule it’s always going to be a bit of a gamble deciding if you want to put something new in your selection, especially at Phillip Island because you’ve got be ready for everything, the weather is very changeable there. Anyway, a big thanks to the team for working hard again – right now we need to make all the progress we can. Now we will go home, not a bad place to be. The last few weeks have been pretty hectic so it’s time to relax a little and wait for the Friday morning at Phillip Island where we’ll get another chance to beat the other guys. We’ve got three more chances and we’ll being going all out to win.”
Non-official lap times
- Nicky Hayden Repsol Honda Team 1m 47.277s 89
- Kousuke Akiyoshi Rizla Suzuki Team 1m 48.040s
- Chris Vermeulen Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m 48.141s
- Tadayuki Okada HRC Test Rider 1m 49.062s
- Nobuatsu Aoki Suzuki Test Rider 1m 50.211s
