MotoGP Phillip Island, Qualifying: Nicky Hayden “The second row is a good result”

On a windier and colder day than the previous ones, Nicky Hayden achieved his best result of the season in qualifying at Phillip Island and tomorrow, for the 150th Grand Prix of his career, he will start from the second row. The American driver and his team have progressively improved the set-up of the GP11.1 and in the warm-up they will try to perfect the final details in view of the race.

“It's the first time this year that I've qualified on the second row and for a while today I even thought I could do better. It's a good result but we shouldn't celebrate too much as we expected to do well here at Phillip Island. One of the things that we will have to try to manage carefully for the entire race distance tomorrow will be the tyres. We will also have to be careful of the many holes along the track, which force us to take trajectories that are not always optimal. Today I had a couple of good attempts to make the time and I just tried to be as fast as possible. Tomorrow I will race my 150th Grand Prix, something that makes me proud because after so many races I am still here, and always in an official team. It would be nice to make good use of the good starting position to achieve our best result of the season in the dry. It will be tough because the competition is fierce but we will try.”