British MotoGP: Nicky Hayden looking for strong second half to 2009

Nicky Hayden is confident his impressive Ducati revival can help him mount a stronger challenge in the second half of the 2009 MotoGP world championship campaign.

After a woeful start on Ducati’s factory GP9, the Kentucky rider has suddenly started to find his form in recent weeks and he goes into this weekend’s British MotoGP race with three successive top ten finishes.

It was less than a week ago too in Germany that he scored his best qualifying result of the campaign with fourth position on the grid and the 2006 world champion said: “It was hard at the beginning to make this transition after ten years at Honda and I came to Ducati where everything was completely different.

“My early results were pretty much crap and it wasn’t much fun but I kept at it and kept working and the team stayed behind me and we eventually got closer to the front.

“I’m quite excited for the second half of the season and I’m back having fun. It’s certainly better for me and the team being close to the front but the level right now in MotoGP is so high the difference between being at the front or at the back is not that much. We’ve still got a long way to go.

“I was in the top five in Laguna but our goals are a lot higher than that. And the closer you get to the front the harder it gets.”

• Do you think you know what will happen in MotoGP? Have a free £25 bet with Betfair