This morning the MotoGP Tests kicked off – the first of three planned for the riders in the top category – at the Jerez Circuit, in the south of Spain. The American rider from the Repsol Honda Team , Nicky Hayden, is ready to return to the top positions of the category, and after completing over one hundred laps on the Andalusian track, has finished the day with the best time.
For teammate Dani Pedrosa, this was his second time wearing the Repsol Honda Team colours so far this year, due to the injury he sustained during the 2008 pre-season training sessions disputed in Sepang three and a half weeks ago. The American from the Repsol Honda Team demonstrated once again that he was untiring, completing more laps than anyone else on the Andalusian track, a total of 107, over 470 kilometres.
Throughout the whole day he has achieved times that maintained him at the top of the category, and at the end, Hayden went on to head the classification. He stopped the chronometer at a stunning 1’39.200 secs, a register very close to the best lap ever accomplished by a motorcycle rider on the track at Jerez – 1’39.064 secs – by Italian Loris Capirossi in 2006. The day was not so easy for Spanish Repsol Honda Team rider Dani Pedrosa. Last January 23rd Pedrosa was operated on by Doctor Xavier Mir for a fracture to the second metacarpal bone of his right hand. Less than a month later, the repsol rider has got on a MotoGP again, with a scar still not fully healed. It was a day for adaptation, to check the state of his right hand and to recover little by little the sensations on his Honda RC212V.
Pedrosa has been doing short runs, five laps at a time, as though recovery is going well, he still feels tension and discomfort that do not let him ride 100%. Today the first of three days of tests has been completed for the pre-season training sessions; the big moment will be tomorrow at midday, when a timed 40 minute session will take place, where the fastest rider in the category will win a car.
Dani Pedrosa
The priority here is to check my physical condition.
The hand still isn’t 100 per cent, today I couldn’t really do more than five laps at a time. The hand is very painful, especially during braking and direction changes. I am icing it after every ride in an attempt to keep the swelling to a minimum. I will continuing icing it tonight a nd we will see how it is tomorrow morning. If the swelling is okay and I feel okay, we will continue riding. Today I was just trying to ride at a safe pace for my condition, so we weren’t really able to do any work on the bike or with tyres.
Nicky Hayden
Audio All in all, a pretty positive day.
I would definitely say this was the best first day of tests we’ve had so far this year. And we knew it was important, because the weather experts are saying there’s a really good chanced of rain the next two days. I tried a different chassis, it felt slightly better with a little more feel on the front, so we used that most of the day and it felt pretty good. We went through a few other things, not making big changes because we’re getting closer to the season now, just a few little settings changes, and when I thought things felt better the stopwatch normally went along with it, which is always good. At the end I did race distance and it didn’t feel too bad. We were able to get into the 40s on race tyres, though we still need to get in there a little deeper, we still need to improve a bit.
