MotoGP: Nicky Hayden “Interesting to return to Sepang”

Nicky Hayden arrives in Malaysia, the seventeenth and penultimate round of the 2011 MotoGP world championship with curiosity. The Kentucki rider is in fact curious to see the progress made by the Borgo Panigale team on a track that was the scene of winter testing. In Sepang the 2006 world champion never finished in the top three but he has always been very fast, with five fourths, a fifth and a sixth place in his career.

“The conditions in Malaysia are typically hot and humid, very different to those we had in the race at Phillip Island on Sunday – said Nicky Hayden – The track layout is a mix of everything so it requires an overall balanced bike. There are long straights where you need speed and immediately afterwards you need great braking stability, such as in turns 5 and 6 and in the rear section. On the other hand there are also very slow points and tight hairpins, in short a variety of which puts both the rider and the bike to the test. It will be interesting to go back after the February tests because the bike has changed a lot since then.”