Repsol Honda RC212V rider Nicky Hayden ended an unusual first day of practice ninth fastest at Sepang today. Track conditions were tricky in both sessions, riders dealing with a dusty track surface this morning, when Hayden was sixth quickest, then light rain this afternoon.
At one point during the second session the rain was heavy enough to bring riders into the pits, but during most of the hour only a light drizzle fell, not enough to force riders to switch to treaded tyres but enough to prevent them from fully exploiting their slick tyres. Lap times hardly improved throughout the day, FP2 only a few hundredths faster than FP1 and Hayden just a tenth faster second time out. The MotoGP pack was impressively close today, considering this is MotoGP longest racetrack with a two minutes-plus lap time, Hayden just eight tenths off the best lap of the day.
Nicky Hayden, 9th fastest, 2m 03.550s
“Obviously I don’t like to be down in ninth, but we have made a little bit of progress today. The track was quite dirty this morning, there was a lot of sand around, but it seemed to clean up all right. This afternoon’s session was quite tricky, there was a light rain pretty much the whole session, but it’s so hot here that the rain is pretty much gone before it even touches the ground. The bike feels pretty decent and the tyres seem okay, so I’m confident that we can improve, that’s the plan. It was quite strange this afternoon. If that had been the race it would have been interesting – it was raining pretty heavy at one point, everybody came into the pits at one point. It’s been doing that the last couple of afternoons, so maybe it’ll be like that on Sunday. We haven’t had a half-and-half race for a while, so maybe that would be quite cool. Now my foot’s better I can switch bikes and they’ve got a big wide pit road here, so it might be fun, but I’d better be careful what I wish for.”
Kazuhiko Yamano - Team Manager
“The weather conditions could be a very important factor here over the next few days. We have had some rain over the last two afternoons, so it would be useful if we could have a fully wet session in case it rains on Sunday. Nicky seems to be getting on okay, he is working on set-up as usual, but he has no big settings issues to work on.”
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