Jerry Burgess praises Nicky Hayden revival

Valentino Rossi’s factory Yamaha crew chief Jerry Burgess has praised American Nicky Hayden’s brilliant revival in 2010.

Hayden has been transformed by Ducati’s smoother Big Bang GP10 motor and he’s claimed successive fourth place finishes in Qatar and Jerez.

And the 2006 world champion’s have caught the eye of Aussie Burgess, who has been the technical architect of Rossi’s seven MotoGP world titles since 2001.

Burgess told MCN: “ I was talking with Filippo Preziosi (Ducati’s technical boss) and I commented how good his bike is and he indicated to me that Nicky had put in an awful lot of work. He endured a lot of hardship and heartbreak during last year and never gave up and they have obviously taken on board Nicky’s experience on the Honda. Without being unfair to Casey (Stoner), he didn’t have a lot of experience on anything until he rode the Ducati, so now he has someone there they can bounce some ideas off and I’m sure Casey and Ducati will come up with something that works.”

With Yamaha looking as formidable as ever with Rossi and Fiat-backed team-mate Jorge Lorenzo winning the first two races and Repsol Honda also on the podium twice, Burgess reckons the 2010 campaign could provide some thrilling racing with Hayden back on form.

He added: “It is good to see a rider doing well on Ducati in consecutive races who is not Casey and that can only be good for everybody.  There are two good riders at Yamaha, Honda have got two guys now with experience and Ducati have got two guys with experience. So there should be more races with the top six filled by those guys.”