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Hayden: 2008 progress, 2007 faster |
After technical problems with the new RC212V on Tuesday afternoon, the hard-working Hayden completed 92 laps of the Valencia circuit on Wednesday - although his best lap, good enough for second behind world champion Casey Stoner, came on the old machine. Hayden likes the new '08 chassis, but says the new engine - which features pneumatic valves - 'needs some work'.
"We spent most of the day on the new machine and made some decent progress," said the Repsol Honda rider. "We were focussed on trying to get the engine to run a little smoother at the top end and we've still got some work to do on that front. But it's early days and we've gathered some useful data that the HRC engineers can use to hopefully improve things before we test at Sepang next week.
"I really like the chassis which is more balanced than the old machine. Not so much weight pitches to the front under braking and it wheelies less too," he explained. "Overall I'm pretty happy with how this first test has gone and we've definitely got a better base compared with this time last year. Today I also did a long run on the 2007 bike to get some comparison data and I was still a little faster on the old machine - by about half a second - so we need to try to close that gap when we get down to work this winter."
Dani Pedrosa, who won the Valencian season finale on Sunday, wasn't far behind his American team-mate, the Spaniard setting the fourth fastest time of the 17 riders present.
"We've been testing a lot of things today and jumping from the old machine to the new one to gather comparison data," began the 2007 MotoGP World Championship runner-up. "I think we've done a lot of useful work. One and a half days is not a lot of time to fully test a completely new machine but now we need to analyse the data we collected and come to some conclusions about the direction to take the machine.
"The feel of the new bike is quite different both in terms of the engine characteristics and the riding position. From the outside it looks bigger - and it is a bit bigger but it's still OK for me," revealed Pedrosa. "I didn't focus on lap times today because the most important thing is getting familiar with the new bike and learning where we're going to develop it. Anyway the lap times are not so bad for the first test. We also tested tyres for Michelin today, mainly with the old bike because we have a lot of reference data for that bike."
Repsol Honda will now head to Sepang in Malaysia for a three-day test beginning on Thursday November 15.
