2006 Australian Superbike Championship (YMF Loan) - Round Four - Queensland Raceway

Repsol Honda Day 1 Report

All eyes were on Repsol Honda star Nicky Hayden as he rode out onto the newly-surfaced Laguna Seca circuit today to begin the first day of practice for his home race, the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. The 24-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky who comes to the spectacular California circuit leading the world championship, put in a late charge in the afternoon session to end the day with the second fastest time behind fellow Honda-powered American, Kenny Roberts Junior. Hayden’s team-mate, Dani Pedrosa, impressed on his first visit to Laguna, finishing just behind Hayden in third place.

Last year Hayden came to the U.S. Grand Prix lying 7th in the world championship and 110 points behind leader and eventual champion Valentino Rossi. This time the story is very different with Hayden holding a 26-point lead in the standings, a position which guarantees he’ll go into the short summer break which follows this race at the head of the title standings, regardless of the result this weekend. But Hayden’s strong start today will only add to his desire to repeat his victory last year and take the full 25 points in Sunday’s race.

Hayden, a former dirt-track rider, was sporting a special helmet design today based on that of his childhood hero, Bubba Shobert – a former three-time AMA Grand National dirt-track champion. After the first practice session there was a surprise in store for Hayden as Shobert himself arrived in his pit to give Hayden a replica helmet and compare notes on riding styles.

Dani Pedrosa once again impressed the MotoGP paddock by overcoming the considerable disadvantage of never having seen the track before to end the day right on the pace. Having taken his time to learn the technical 3.610km (2.243 miles) circuit in the morning session, the 20-year-old Spaniard upped the tempo to record the third fastest time of the day, just 0.069s behind Hayden.

A one-hour qualifying session takes place tomorrow, before Sunday’s 32-lap race, which begins at 2pm local time (11pm CET).

Nicky Hayden 2nd – 1m 24.125s
“I haven’t felt as comfortable straight out of the gate as I’d have liked here but towards the end of the second session we found a bit of direction and got more comfortable. So I’m not totally happy about how the day went but I’m sure we can gas it up a bit tomorrow, have a bit more fun and really be in the mix. The support from the crowd here is awesome and it’s an unbelievable feeling for me to ride here at Laguna. The new pavement isn’t quite as good as I thought it was going to be – it’s a little bit bumpy – but it didn’t seem too bad and it’s safer in some spots, which is good. The patches don’t feel great but overall it’s ok, and anyway I can’t change the track but I can brake a little deeper and get on the gas a little earlier. It was really special to meet Bubba Shobert this morning. He was my childhood hero in his dirt-track days and he gave me a replica helmet today which is really cool. I’m really honoured to wear his helmet and it looks pretty good, but it’ll look a lot better if I can get it up front on Sunday.”

Dani Pedrosa 3rd – 1m 24.194s
“The main focus of today was learning the new track and trying to find the secrets of Laguna Seca. It will be difficult to find a good set-up at this track because it’s very bumpy and we have many different types of corners: fast, tight, downhill, uphill. Plus there are corners with banking where there’s a lot of G-force, and corners that are flat, so finding the right compromise is difficult. Tomorrow we have to continue finding the right balance to be as fast as possible. The Corkscrew is special because there’s no other corner like it, but riding it was ok and I had no problems. I didn’t expect to be this high at the end of the day and I’m very happy, but of course everyone will improve a lot tomorrow so I won’t be relaxing just yet.”

Makoto Tanaka - Team Manager
“The Laguna Seca circuit has changed this year and has been completely resurfaced. I expected the lap-times to have reduced but there are an unexpected amount of bumps and all the riders had a difficult time. Nicky had a lot of support from his local American fans and he showed really good fighting spirit. He couldn’t quite get the top time today but he’s very strong at home and we should be able to fix the slight problems he had today. This is the first time at the track for Dani and he was very strong to finish 3rd, just behind two American riders. He rode steadily at first as usual and I’m sure he’ll get quicker tomorrow. It looks like it’s going to be rain-free this weekend so we’re looking forward to showing our good pace tomorrow.”