Nicky Hayden finished the day with the second fastest time at Brno

Hayden finished the day with the second fastest time and completed 79 laps. © Repsol Honda Team. Series leader Nicky Hayden and his team-mate Dani Pedrosa enjoyed a fruitful day's testing at Brno following yesterday's Grand Prix of the Czech Republic. The team-mates, who sit in first and second in the MotoGP riders' points standings after 12 of 17 rounds, were also joined at the 5.403km (3.357 miles) circuit by most of the other teams.

Nicky Hayden had a positive day as he continued development of the evolution Honda RC211V. The 25-year-old American performed further testing of the updated chassis first seen at Donington Park earlier in the season. He was able to lap consistently in the 1m 58s bracket and was pleased with his strong pace. Hayden finished the day with the second fastest time, down Valentino Rossi with a fastest time of 157"315, and completed an impressive 79 laps, the equivalent of over 3½ race distances.

Nicky Hayden: “Overall I'm definitely encouraged by today. I got in a lot of quality laps and the guys in my team worked hard. We were working with the chassis, trying some of the parts we used at Donington earlier in the season, and we definitely found some improvements. I was able to run a lot more consistently in the 1m 58s today compared to the weekend so I'm quite happy about how it went. We'll come back tomorrow and try and get another full day's work in and look for any edge we can find.”

Spaniard Dani Pedrosa, who lies in second position in the championship, worked on further honing his RC211V's race set-up following his combative podium finish yesterday. The 20-year old Spaniard also worked through a valuable programme of front tyre testing for Michelin. Like his team-mate, Pedrosa put in a substantial day's work, lapping the Czech circuit 74 times. Without going for outright lap times today, he clocked the eleventh fastest time.

Dani Pedrosa: “Today was a good test. We tried to find some improvement from yesterday's race set-up and worked on some weak points we had over the weekend. I think we found some improvements in the feeling from the bike but of course we will only really know for sure when we come to another race. We were also doing some front tyre testing for Michelin which went well.”

Hayden will continue testing the evolution RC211V tomorrow before the Repsol Honda team packs the crates ready for the forthcoming flyaway races in Malaysia, Australia and Japan.
(Repsol Honda Team)

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