German MotoGP: Early error costs Nicky Hayden

A mistake at the first corner ruined Nicky Hayden’s hopes of scoring his best Ducati result in Germany.

Boosted by his best qualifying performance that left him fourth on the grid, Hayden’s hopes of bettering his fifth place in Laguna Seca were immediately dashed.

Anxious to get away with the leading bunch, Hayden found himself down in 14th in the first sector and the American said: “When I turned in I lost the rear and had to pick it up and just got roughed up on the first corner.

“The first lap I recovered quite a few positions after being 14th in the first split. My start was fine but turn one I was hot and lost the rear on the entry and got pushed wide.

“I was out on the white line and when we went back left for turn two the pack just swallowed me up.”

Hayden quickly regained five places with an aggressive opening lap but he was only able to make up one further place for the rest of the 30-lap race as he encountered front and rear Bridgestone tyres issues.

“I don’t know if the track was a bit dirty but I was pushing the front from lap three and it eventually got better.

“At first I thought I might have a problem with it because it was pushing a lot in the downhill corners.

“Maybe it just wasn’t hot enough but when it came in it was fine. The rear was pretty much chewed up and it’s easy to say I should have used the hard tyre,“ said the Kentucky rider, who had suffered a minor right shoulder injury during a massive crash in the warm-up session, high-siding at the top of the fast downhill Turn 11 – the fastest corner on the calendar.

The 2006 world champion admitted the spill, which followed his bizarre qualifying tangle with Niccolo Canepa had knocked his momentum and he said: “To be honest after my crash in warm-up I started the race a little uptight because I didn’t want to wreck another bike or throw away everything we have gained and learned this weekend.

“It wasn’t the race we were looking for so I’m sorry to the team because the bike was capable of more here; I’ve just made a couple of mistakes this weekend.

“I don’t want to apologise for trying too hard though because I knew I could do good here. It is hard to be patient when you have a sniff of the front and instead of taking things step by step like we have up to now I pushed my luck and we’ve paid the price.

“So I’m disappointed with the race but not with the weekend on the whole because we’re up and running now and moving forward.

“But I got off easy at the top of the hill. There are places on the calendar you don’t want to crash and that’s right up there. But it was an easy crash.

“I felt the front go but I just thought ‘lie back here and go for the ride.’ My shoulder starting getting hot as it started burning through the leather. I was a bit worried because I did hurt shoulder but in the race I was fine.”

 

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