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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1542339
l_londa's
master
plan
to wrestle the
I I MotoGP
World
title away from for-
mer
tolden
boy Valentino Rossi is to give
number-one
factory
rider Niclq Hayden
another
six week ro decide which RCV
he will ride in 2006.
HRC bosses revealed in
Sepang that
the American
doeso't
have
to
make
up his
mind about which version
of the
flve-
cy'inder RCV he wants
to mce nex( sea-
son until the IRTA test doubleheader in
Catalunya andJerez,
Spain,
in
early
l'larch.
While
Rossi and Ducati
duo
Loria
Capirossi and Sete Gibernau
put
in crucial
development miles
on the bikes on which
thq/ will
definitely
line
up on the
grid
for
the first race in
jerez,
HRC has still to
decide on its weapon
of
choice.
At the recent test in Malaysia, Hayden
had two different RCVS. One was
a
mod-
ified veBion ofthe 2005 bik€ he raced lelt
season, while he was also
Siven
a first
out-
in8 on Honda's new RCV that Max Biaggi
and Gibernau tested in Brno last August-
Hayden has b€en told he can take as
lonS as
possible
to e\raluate both bikes
before making his decision, and HRC boss
liutomu lshii
even said he'd be willin8 to
wait for Hayden's
answer until after the
final
test
in
lerez.
The same
goes
for Hayden's
offlcial
factory teammate Dani Pedrosa. He has
got
a modified
'05
factory RCV like
Hayden, and also last
year's "standard"
RCV on which Hayden ended last season.
lshiiconfirmed
Honda could be left in a
situation where
its
two factory riders opt
to
run different machines.
That, thou8h, seems highly unlikely,
Siven
the amount of time Hayden dedicat-
ed to the brand-new Hondathat HRC had
hoped to race last season.
Development problems after the initial
shakedown test in the Czech Republic last
"lf
I had to make
a decision right
now, I'd
definitely
go
for my old
bike, without
question."
summer forced Honda
into a
rethink,
though it seems that updates to the
bike
have done little to convince Ha),den to
8ive
up what he's familiar and comfortable
with. He rode the Brno spec RCV for
just
30laps on the opening day in Malaysia
and
was a second slower than he was lapping
on his modilied
'05
bike.
And it seems that Hayden's mind has
-
Nicky Hayden
already
been
made
up, and that he wan6
to run his updated
2005 RCV
"lf
I had to make a decision right
now,
l'd definitely
go
for my old bike, without
question,"
Hayden said.
He also
gave
a massive clue as to
where
his preference is
when talking
about ridinS
the Bmo spec bike.
"l tried
the
new
bike on the first day to
try and ger some
data
for HRC,
but the
second da),, I mainly
iust
focused
on
my
bik€ for the year, "said the 24-year-old.
"The
Brno bike has som€
Sood
points, but
it still definitely needs some mo.e work. I
was much faster on my normal bike, by
quite
a lot. lt feels good chanSing direction
and
toint
into the comer. but we are not
ready to line up on the
trid
with that thing
lust
yet.
But
until we make a litrle bit
more
progress,
then l'm not
going
to mce
it. l'm sure by the IRTA test,
we'll know
what
our weapon is."
Hayden said it was imperative
that a deci-
sion was made sooner rather than later,
with
Honda
plannir6
modifi