Ready for the MotoGP season
The Repsol Honda Team wrapped up an intense winter testing programme in a cautiously optimistic mood on the final day at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain.
Nicky Hayden put in another massive day`s work as he and his crew raced to get the new-for-2006 development version of the RC211V ready for the MotoGP season. Fitting a softer Michelin tyre in the afternoon session allowed the 24-year-old rider from Kentucky, USA, to climb further up the time sheets - finishing sixth quickest with a best lap time of 1m 40.570s.

His young team-mate, reigning 250cc World Champion Dani Pedrosa, was very impressive as he clocked the fourth quickest time on the softer Michelin rubber, despite being hindered on his fastest lap.

Free of machine-development duties and riding in front of more than 5000 Spanish race fans, the 20-year-old Spaniard continued his carefully planned learning process as he makes the big step up to the MotoGP class. He cleverly timed his longest run of the day to begin around 2pm, the same time as the first race will start here in exactly two week`s time.

The Repsol Honda Team will now enjoy a short break before returning here to Jerez for first race in the 17-round MotoGP championship on March 26.

Nicky Hayden (1m 40.570s, 109 laps completed) : “Well all the testing`s all over and now it`s time for the real deal. Next time we get on the bikes it`ll be showtime. I`d like to say we`re right there and everything`s all gravy but the truth is we still couldn`t quite get the bike to stay in line and get hooked up as good as we wanted. We`ve made some progress today and at the end we put on some soft tyres, not qualifiers, just to see what it would do and that definitely helped my lap time a lot. And I did a full race run to get a feeling but I it was hard to maintain the pace. Nonetheless, I`m excited to go racing. Testing`s cool but going toe-to-toe with the boys is the fun part!”

Dani Pedrosa (1m 40.416s, 81 laps completed) : “It`s been a very good pre-season for me because each time on the bike I`ve been able to improve step-by-step. I did a lot of laps over the winter and this is very useful to get to know the bike because the step up from the 250 to MotoGP is much bigger than the step from 125 to 250. Physically I`m getting stronger and this will continue throughout the year. I`m starting to understand how the tyres work, though I need more experience with the electronics, on race starts and qualification tyres. I don`t know if I`m ready for round one – we`ll have to wait and see!”

Makoto Tanaka - Repsol Honda Team Manager : “We have worked through a demanding menu of testing here, in readiness for the up- coming Spanish GP. Both Nicky and Dani have done lots of laps. Thanks to all of our staff, they all worked very hard during this pre-season test schedule. Dani did a very good job today, especially with his consistency during the long run with race tyres. He made good progress, more than what we hoped, so we are very much looking forward to the opening race. We are the quickest Michelin runner throughout three days of testing here and Nicky showed good speed and he gave us the top two times of the Michelin runners. But Nicky hasn`t got the perfect set-up yet and we still have a lot of work to do to improve his machine for the race. We have some positive feeling from a good race tyre pace but still need more hard work. We`ll do our best to ensure a good race here in Jerez.”

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