IN
THE
WIND
P26
READY OR NOT: IT'S RACE
TIME FOR HAYDEN
N
icky Hayden completed his
ninth and final day of the
pre-MotoGP season on Sunday
at the Losail Circuit in Qatar and
in two weeks the former World
Champion will make his debut on
the Drive M7 Aspar Honda.
At the end of the test, Hayden
was ranked ninth (the "Factory"
Repsol Honda, Yamaha and
Ducati teams were not at the
Qatar test), clocking his best
time on the final day on his 37
th
lap – a 1:56.273, which was .6
of a second better than his best
from the day before but still 1.3
seconds behind test leader Aleix
Espargaro. Hayden is lacking
from straight-line speed on the
"Open" class RCV1000R.
"Today we found some more
improvements and I was able
to set more laps in the 1:56s,"
Hayden said in a team release.
"We have worked more with the
tires and made some setting
changes thinking ahead to the
race and also qualifying. We tried
changing bikes in pit lane and I
also did some practice starts. In
the end I set my fastest time of
the test, which is positive even
though the gap to the top is still
very big, especially when you
consider that the top riders are
not here. We have worked hard
and found some good things, but
we still need to take a big step
forward in terms of the power. It's
not right that we should be losing
half a second on the straights.
We know what HRC is capable
of so I am confident that we will
soon have some more improve-
ments. As far as we're con-
cerned we will continue working
to get all of the potential out of
this motorcycle."
Hayden was .733 of a sec-
ond faster than his teammate
Hiroshi Aoyama and .736 faster
than the third best of the Honda
RCV1000Rs ridden by Brit Scott
Redding.
If Honda doesn't find more power
from the RCV1000R in the next few
weeks, the girls in the office aren't
going to like the non-happy Nicky
Hayden photos nearly as much as
the happy Hayden shots.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
TRIUMPH:
DISALVO
JOINS MYERS
T
he Richard Harris' Apex Manu-
facturing/Sportbike Track Time
team has expanded to two riders
with former Daytona 200 winner
Jason DiSalvo joining Elena My-
ers for the 2014 Daytona SportBike
season on the team's Castrol/Tri-
umph Daytona 675Rs.
Elena Myers leads teammate Jason DiSalvo on the
Castrol Triumph Daytona 675s during a recent test.
continued on page 28
