MotoGP – Valencia QP1 – Nicky Hayden was hoping for pole

Nicky Hayden would have liked to start from pole position in Valencia, the last stage of the 2008 world championship. The Honda rider who had been the fastest in the sessions preceding the qualifying wanted to dedicate it to Michelin which will abandon the world championship and to his current team which he will leave after 9 years to join Ducati. Unfortunately for him he didn't succeed and so he will give his all in the race tomorrow to leave a good memory and to give himself a good result. The word is up to him.

“We were very close to winning pole but it doesn't count I think! We shouldn't be too sorry though because we are in the front row. It was quite clear that we really wanted to be on pole, we were faster throughout the weekend, the bike is working well and the team did a great job when it started to dry out and when we put on the first qualifying tyres. It was a difficult session, we put on qualifying tires early and then switched back to race ones. During my last qualifying I did 1'32.0 on my first lap and I knew it would be difficult to get 31S. I pushed really hard but I was able to do 1'31.7. It's always a compromise, sometimes it gets too hot and sometimes it doesn't get hot enough. It would have been nice to give Michelin pole for the last MotoGP race. But we have a good bike and a good set-up, so now we think about the race. I didn't do many laps on the race tyres. I've only tested the tires for a couple of races so we can definitely talk to Michelin and use the warm up to make the final adjustments.”