INTERVIEW
2006 MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION NICKY HAYDEN
P92
a fan of the racing. Right now
I wish I could say more but it is
just blah, blah, blah until we turn
a few wheels."
Turn wheels he did, despite
two late starts at Motorland
Aragon in his first test on the
Honda, due to bad weather.
"On the second day were able
to improve straight away after
checking the data overnight," he
said at the completion of his first
test, with 44 laps set on day two.
"I am not spectacular or anything
incredible, obviously, but we
were able to improve through
the day. We hit a few little walls
and had a couple of problems.
But we were able to sort through
them and keep improving."
Most people at Motorland
thought that being one tenth
back from his teammate
Michael van der Mark in his first
ever test was a good showing.
He was only 0.8 seconds from
the second fastest man, and
0.7 seconds from two other top
riders—at a 3.3-mile circuit he is
no great fan of. But for former
MotoGP champions, different
filters apply, apparently.
"I do not know all his (van der
Mark's) lap times but they say
I was one tenth behind…but I
would rather be one tenth the
other way," said the gnarly dirt
tracker and GP winner inside
Hayden. "I feel not too bad,
obviously I have to improve and
as you go along the tenths get
harder. I tried a qualifying tire at
the end, to get some data, but I
went slower with it so that is ob-
viously not good. But it is a good
thing I tried it now and figure it
out now versus qualifying. I did
a 1:51.8s and the best time I saw
was 1:50.3s (Rea), which was
like, wow! Being about 0.7 be-
hind most of the rest of the top
riders is quite a lot. I can't say I
am thrilled by that, because that
is a lot. The team says that this
is one of their worst tracks so
maybe we can be closer at the
tests in Jerez. At the race here
(in Motorland) they said they
struggled a lot."
Hayden will have several more
tests to get up to speed and he
surely has pace inside him still.
2017 may well be a more realistic
season for talk about winning
things in WorldSBK, but his
rivals all know they have another
rider in their midst who could be
a podium threat, even from the
very start of the new season.CN
FRED MERKEL – 1988, 1989 DOUG POLEN – 1991, 1992
COLIN EDWARDS – 2000, 2002
SCOTT RUSSELL – 1993 JOHN KOCINSKI – 1997 BEN SPIES – 2009
AMERICA'S WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONS
