After achieving the best time on Saturday and taking third place in yesterday's timed session, Nicky Hayden leaves the Jerez Circuit leading the time sheet. The Repsol rider was the only rider to achieve times below 1'39 over the three days of training, demonstrating the enormous potential of the Michelin qualification tyres. The American has also been working on the development of his RC212V 2008, with new improvements on the chassis. In total he completed 82 laps on the Andalusian track, again the rider to complete the most laps. His best lap was No. 81, with classification tyres. Hayden also ran a race simulation with satisfactory results according to the rider himself.
Nicky Hayden, fastest lap: 1m 38.848s (lap 81 of 82) >> Audio
“It’s definitely been a really positive and productive three days. We had high hopes coming here because when we tested here in November the bike worked pretty good and Michelin tyres normally work good at Jerez, so this is a good track for us, also there’s no big long straightaways. The wind here has made it tough, the conditions haven’t been easy, but I do feel more comfortable on this year’s bike in the wind. The team really worked hard and made some good moves and good decisions. We didn’t make a lot of big changes, we just got closer to race settings, tried a couple of qualifiers and did a 25 lap run. The chassis seems to be working good and also the tyres are working good. We tried a few different tyre options, and we’re still checking data between the 16 and 16.5 rears. But the show hasn’t started yet, we’ll find out what everybody’s really got and what we’re in for when we get to Qatar but we leave here pretty happy. At the Qatar tests we’ll see how it is under the lights and dial everything in for the first race.”
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