Nicky Hayden put the disaster of Qatar behind him by switching to the latest HRC chassis at Jerez … and the improvement was immediate.
At Qatar, the 2006 World Champion had reverted to the 2007 bike, unhappy with the chassis of the 2008 bike; but team-mate Dani Pedrosa had another chassis revision there, which he used to come second in the race while Hayden slumped to a downbeat tenth.
“The biggest improvement is I’ve got a different chassis this weekend. It has a lot better feel at the front,” said Hayden, after the first day of practice.
“I’ve been enjoying riding again … it’s a much better bike than I had in Qatar. The new chassis is better at the front – not in one place especially, but in overall feel.”
His acquisition is understood to be as used by Pedrosa three weekends ago, but Hayden was deliberately vague. “I don’t really know if it’s the same, nor what’s different about it. I’ve had a couple of different answers. All I know is I had two different chassis here and I preferred the newer one.”
He was waiting for a second one the same, having parked his other machine. “I’ll be pretty grateful when I get it. With just one bike, we wanted to try a change this afternoon, but it would have taken too long out of the practice session.”
