Ducati Team rider Nicky Hayden finishes in top five for first practice day at Valencia – MotoGP news
Ducati Team rider Nicky Hayden held fourth position in the first practice session held for the Valencia Grand Prix.
The Kentucky Kid gave his best shot of 1 minute and 46.073 seconds in FP1 at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit.
The American Ducati rider made a strong effort to top the time charts but could not hold on to it. The low temperatures held off the riders from performing at optimum levels.
Hayden said, “This was actually the first time I’ve ever ridden the GP11.1 in the wet, and I was really happy with how it felt. The track was extremely slippery. We came from Malaysia and Australia, where the surface would dry in no time, but here, even
when it would stop raining, it just wouldn’t dry.”
The initial practice day was affected by rain. The track got greasy due to rubber laid on the track and rain worsened the conditions. The riders were not able to direct their improvement.
The Ducati has been a bit steady in the wet conditions but struggled in the dry.
The highest afternoon temperature recorded was 16 degrees Celsius. This caused many riders to perform slowly in the session and the afternoon session got even worse.
The rider struggled to manage grip on the wet track conditions. He had a hard time while taking corners in slippery conditions.
The Kentucky Kid added, “The grip was really low, especially on corner entry, but we made a few steps through the day that seemed to help. I’m not going to lie; it would’ve been nice to end up in P1, even though it’s just Friday afternoon.”
Though Hayden spent some time on top of the time chart with few fast times in track sections. He looks forward to have a dry practice session on the second day.
The dry conditions will help the rider to improve his race setup for Sunday. However, the team has collected some important technical data for the race weekend.
On the other side Hayden’s teammate Valentino Rossi took third position on the time charts for the initial day. The Italian Ducati rider also faced similar issues to lap his best effort.
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