Qualifying on the front row for the fifth time this season at the Gran Premio Parts Europe de la Comunitat Valenciana Nicky Hayden appears to be in good shape for his last race with Honda.
Nicky Hayden in action in Valencia
Having topped the free practice timesheets throughout the weekend in wet conditions Nicky Hayden came out third in a mainly dry qualifying session at the Ricardo Tormo circuit on Saturday.
As he prepares to say goodbye to Repsol Honda and Michelin after six seasons of collaboration the 2006 World Champion had hoped to wrap things up with a pole position, but was nonetheless fairly satisfied with his afternoon´s work.
Speaking to motogp.com Hayden commented, `Certainly being on the front row we should be happy here. It is a good starting position and it is really important, even though I want to be on pole. For Michelin´s last race it would have been nice to give them a pole on their way out.´
`Anyway, we are in a good position and the bike feels ok on race tyres so we´ll see what happens. I´m excited about the race, it should be a lot of fun and everybody is going hard this weekend.´
On the difficulties of preparing for the final race of the year in mixed conditions over the last 48 hours, the affable American added, `I think with conditions like this it is hard to get a great set-up but we got some time this afternoon to check a couple of tyres and look at fuel consumption and a couple of other things for the race. So it has been tough and even during the qualifying it started to rain again a little bit but the team have done a good job.´
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