NICKY HAYDEN MAKES SURE OF THE FRONT ROW AT LAGUNA SECA
WITH THE THIRD FASTEST TIME
The American will defend the Repsol Honda Team colours alone
on Sunday. Dani Pedrosa rules out taking the start and returns
home to continue his recuperation
The fourth and definitive session, the qualifying round, saw
the pole go once again to the Australian Casey Stoner, but
there will be another front row start for Nicky Hayden, with
the Honda engine that uses pneumatic valves. The local hero
and World MotoGP Champion 2006 set the sixth best time in
the third practice session in the morning, 1.3 seconds behind
the Australian Stoner. Meanwhile, in the morning Pedrosa ruled
out starting the race and announced that he was returning
home to continue with his process to recover from his injuries.
In the qualifying session the American Repsol Honda Team rider
was in either fifth or sixth position in the first half of
the practice, riding with several types of tyre to evaluate
their behaviour. 21 minutes from the end the Repsol rider
went out onto the track with his first qualification tyre,
setting the fifth fastest time. With 15 minutes left he went
out again with his second qualification tyre and he moved
up to third.
His third tyre, which he used when there were 10 minutes
left, let him finish in second place, although Rossi rapidly
overtook him in the battle for the second place on the grid.
The final and definitive qualification tyre took him back
to the second position but once again Rossi responded with
a faster time whilst Stoner comfortably kept his first place
on the grid. So in the end third position for Nicky Hayden
and a first row start.
Quotes
MotoGP
Nicky Hayden >>
“Qualifying was difficult, there were many guys crashing.
Qualifying is so important here because it’s so hard
to pass, so some guys are willing to pay a big price for a
good grid position. Our race pace isn’t exactly blazing
but it’s really nice to be on the front row in front
of the home crowd, the support is awesome.
I know tomorrow’s going to be really tough, Casey [Stoner]
is on fire right now and we’re having a few little issues,
but the team’s done a good job and I feel like we deserve
a good result. Hoping won’t get it though, so we’ll
come in here tomorrow, ride hard and see if we can’t
pull something out. I’m a little bit nervous. Truth
is, the tyres we’ve got in our allocation are a little
out of the range, so the warmer the better for us. We changed
the bike a little bit to make the tyres work more and the
qualifying tyres were awesome. Actually I felt like I maybe
left a couple of tenths in them but I was running about as
hard as I could. Hopefully we can put on a good show tomorrow
and not less this guy disappear. A podium would be great,
but to try to fight with Casey would be a long shot. We never
give up, anything can happen when we line up, so we’ll
come in here, try to have fun, try my hardest and I know I’ll
have plenty of support. I’m looking forward to it.”
Official Results
MotoGP
1. Casey STONER (DUCATI) 1:20.700
2. Valentino ROSSI (YAMAHA) + 0.447
3. Nicky HAYDEN (REPSOL HONDA) + 0.730
4. Jorge LORENZO (YAMAHA) + 0.936
5. James TOSELAND (YAMAHA) + 1.148
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