Hayden: We've made Valentino mad.

Just days after his shock title victory over Valentino Rossi, and following his first ever test on an 800cc machine, MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden has declared his intention to join an 'elite group' by taking a second title next season.

"Sunday almost feels old now and I know we've made Valentino mad by taking his title, so I'm looking forward to taking him on next season," stated Hayden. "I want to come back next year and win again on this (800cc) bike. To win one title is great but to win two of them takes you into another elite group - so I'm still hungry."

Wednesday at Valencia marked Hayden's debut on the 800cc Repsol Honda RC212V he will campaign, with the #1 plate replacing his traditional #69, next season. The American put in 87 laps of the tight and demanding circuit on his way to recording a best lap time of 1min 33.66secs - just six-tenths of a second slower than his fastest time aboard the 990cc RC211V he raced to third place on Sunday. Hayden's 800cc lap time was 0.56secs behind Rossi, the fastest 800cc rider on the opening day of testing.

"I enjoyed riding the new bike today and I'm quite excited because it's got some pretty trick parts and it looks really cool. I got down into the 1min 33secs lap-times pretty easily this morning which is a good sign," said the 25-year-old.

Hayden had to adjust his riding style slightly to get the best out of the V4 powered machine, which he naturally found more compact than its V5 powered predecessor, and felt the new bike had better traction and handling.

"The new bike feels like it's got a lot more traction - especially under acceleration," confirmed the Kentuckian. "The power delivery feels a lot smoother, and when you first open the throttle you don't need to get the bike picked up as much as you did with the 990. It feels a lot lighter but actually the weight is not much different. The bike definitely feels quite small and has a different feeling that I'll have to get used to. We're already going around the corners faster than the 990cc bike and it's going to require a different style of riding. It does have high corner-entry and corner speed and I'll have to adapt a few things with my style."

Meanwhile, team-mate Dani Pedrosa had already ridden the new machine, following September's Japanese Grand Prix, and was able to lap 0.45secs faster than Hayden on Wednesday - putting the reigning rookie of the year just 0.1secs outside his best 990cc time in the grand prix.

"The feeling from the bike here, at a European circuit, is more or less the same as in the first test in Japan," revealed the double 2006 race winner. "We have ridden for many more hours today, so that's been good and I've been improving bit by bit. We've made general tests to start finding the best set-up and to get closer to the performance during the grand prix.

"There are some differences compared to the 990cc machine. This bike is obviously totally different to the previous one, but in the end it's also a motorbike, so the way to work with it is the same. I still have to find the right way to ride it because I'm still used to the other bike. However, it will soon come naturally as we continue lapping. As regards to the tyres, we've been using the same specification as we used during the grand prix weekend," explained Dani.

Testing at Valencia concludes on Thursday, with Repsol Honda's next test planned for Malaysia on November 15.