Hayden overcomes rain in Losail
Added on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Hayden overcomes rain in Losail
Nicky Hayden was the fastest on a rain-hit first day of night testing in Qatar on Sunday as conditions cut short many teams’ preparations for the new season.
The American, who joined Ducati at the start of the season, posted a best time of 2:00.717 on the opening day of testing, 0.15 seconds ahead of the Marco Melandri – the man that he replaced at the Italian team.
As torrential rain and driving wind blowing desert sand onto the circuit, many opted to sit out of the session including world champion Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Loris Capirossi and Hayden’s teammate Casey Stoner although that didn’t stop Hayden clocking 31 laps in total on Day one.
Despite the day’s fastest time, Hayden was left frustrated by the amount of work that the team could do both during and after the test as the weather practically negated any data that came back from the session.
“I haven’t seen rain in Qatar in all my life and I never thought I would! But today we’d barely got the bike on track and it started to come down,” said the former World Champion. “We had to spend a long time in the garage because even though a part of the track had dried out there was a section that stayed damp for a while. The track conditions were tricky and there wasn’t much feedback, which meant we couldn’t do the work we had planned. We’ve got a few different things to try so hopefully the weather is better tomorrow so we can get some work done.”
Also hard at work was Melandri as he tried to get to grips with the Kawasaki ZX-RR after a turbulent off-season.
Having seen his new employers Kawasaki pull-out of the championship back in January, Melandri will now be part of a one-rider Hayate Racing Team with the Kawasaki after a rescue deal was agreed last week.
Giving his first thoughts on his debut 2009 outing, Melandri was happy with what he achieved in the session. “It was difficult getting used to being on a MotoGP bike again at first after a few months away, but the key thing is I am already feeling good on the Kawasaki,” he told MotoGP.com.
