Repsol Honda RC212V rider Nicky Hayden dominated this afternoon’s soaking-wet second practice session at Phillip Island, lapping the high-speed seaside track three quarters of a second faster than his closest rival.
The American has been using his Michelin rain tyres to stunning effect recently, topping last weekend’s rain-hit opening session at Motegi and finishing second in the hurricane-hit Indianapolis GP two weeks earlier. The 2008 MotoGP season is proving to be the wettest in memory, with rain falling at the vast majority of events so far.
In this morning’s opening session, run in dry conditions, Hayden was 11th quickest, working hard to find more traction around this high-speed track.
Nicky Hayden. FP1 (dry): 11th fastest, 1m 31.284s. FP2 (wet): fastest, 1m 38.820s
“This morning it wasn’t great to be in eleventh, but this afternoon it was nice to be fastest in the wet and consistently really quick at the end, things were feeling really good. My best rain lap time was only seven seconds slower than my best this morning, and it was real wet, so that’s down to some good Michelin rain tyres. But honestly I could have done with some more dry track time to sort out some problems we had this morning. I was struggling with traction, and without traction here you’re not going anywhere. We have got some things to try with the bike set-up, which we couldn’t try so much in the wet, but hopefully we can use tomorrow. I need to be going faster in the dry, we’ve definitely got some work to do, so we’ll keep pushing and see what the weather does tomorrow. I love this track, I love racing at speed, it’s a great thrill, I just need to find some edge grip. If we can find that I can be fast in the dry too.”
Kazuhiko Yamano - Team Manager
“Nicky and his team did a good job today. They started working on settings this morning in the dry. The bike set-up and Michelin rain tyres worked well in the rain this afternoon, so Nicky could finish with the fastest time. Of course, our target is to be in the best possible shape for the race, so tomorrow we will continue working on the bike, hopefully with some good weather.”
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