Nicky Hayden starts out as best Open Class rider in Argentina

2015-04-18 12:26
With no time to rest for the MotoGP riders, the World Championship moved on from Austin to Argentina on Friday. The Termas de Rio Hondo track presented a dirty surface for the riders in the first practice session, but in the second it provided considerably more grip. Fifteen minutes after the start of the afternoon session, a light drizzle led to all riders returning to their garages. This was only a temporary condition, as the asphalt did not become wet and the action was able to resume shortly thereafter. Aleix Espargaró was quickest in both sessions on Friday, lowering the track record from last year. Behind him, Andrea Iannone and Marc Márquez were also amongst the fastest –a mix of Suzuki, Ducati and Honda riders in the top three.

Aware that at Austin he had experienced an uphill struggle for much of the weekend, today Nicky Hayden wanted to start strong from day one –in order to avoid any unwelcome surprises. He concluded the first session of the day in sixth place. Starting the afternoon session slightly far down the order, as a result of testing out different setups, in the closing minutes he made a significant improvement to end day one in fourteenth position. The POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar Team rider was just 1.7 seconds off the overall top time in MotoGP, becoming the fastest Open Class rider of the day.

Teammate Eugene Laverty set a time just 3 tenths of a second slower, and did an excellent job finding a good setup for a new circuit. He placed eighteenth on his first day at the Termas de Río Hondo track.

14th Nicky Hayden 1.40.522 (31 laps): "Honestly, today we started this round in Argentina better than we did at Austin. This is a fun circuit that I enjoy riding at. In the morning the track was a little dirty, but the conditions picked up considerably during the day. Today I had a better feeling than in Austin and was able to ride with more confidence, which is something very positive. Most of my runs today were good, although we have seen that in the second sector we still have some work to do; we need to improve on the back straight and on one of the corners. I am sure that if tomorrow we improve at this sector, then my times will also go down. I'm happy with this first day and we did a good job, but we must continue to evolve over the weekend. Tomorrow we'll look for a couple of solutions to help us brake better."

18th Eugene Laverty 1.40.846 (35 laps): "Today was all-new for me, as I was able to ride at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit for the first time. I really like the layout, the only downside is that the surface is a bit dirty and there are still a few sessions needed in order to lay down some rubber. Today I mainly focused on learning the circuit, but our main problem today was that the bike was sliding around too much. That meant that the traction control kicked in too much and kept us from pushing harder. In any case, I’m convinced that tomorrow we can solve the problem. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how things went at a new circuit; we have learned many things and our times were not very far from the top riders, considering how long this track is. Tomorrow we will try to get the bike turning in more."

Source: AsparTeam

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