Hayden Happy with Sepang Time
Added on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Hayden Happy with Sepang Time
Nicky Hayden declared himself satisfied with the opening day of testing in Sepang despite suffering a small crash just before the circuit closed.
Hayden had just recorded his best lap time of the day with a 2:01.949 when he lost control of the front-end of his Repsol Honda at the final corner of the Malaysian circuit.
The American walked away from the incident unscathed and his bike escaped with only superficial damage.“I was pushing right at the end having just done my best lap of the day. I was getting off the brakes and I lost the front,” said Hayden, who suspected that the RC212V’s new chassis may have been a contributing factor.It’s not the first time that Repsol’s new bike has crashed at Sepang.
Hayden’s team-mate Dani Pedrosa missed the session with a broken hand sustained in the first of two crashes that he experienced at the course back in January.“I didn’t have a lot of warning or feedback and that’s what hit Dani (Pedrosa) at the last test,” added Hayden.
But Hayden was not completely critical, claiming that the team have highlighted a number of areas of improvement in the day’s testing.
“I feel like we learned some things, but there was nothing too spectacular.“I tried some chassis geometry stuff and a few new tyres so I feel like we made a bit of progress. We are not even going to try the new engine but it was a pretty routine day really.”
Nicky Hayden is due to end his test session early, finalising his testing on Wednesday, rather than on Thursday.
