Nicky Hayden: Ducati playing catch-up

Nicky Hayden has conceded that Ducati is currently playing catch-up to rivals Honda and Yamaha following the first 2011 pre-season test in Malaysia last week.

No Ducati rider was able to break into the top six at any stage during the three-day test session and American Hayden finished top rider on the new GP11.

The 2006 world champion though was down the timesheets in eighth position with Valentino Rossi struggling to produce his best form while he continues to recover from winter surgery on the long-term right shoulder injury he suffered last April.
Rossi finished in 11th on the overall timesheets while Honda made a blistering start to the year with Marco Simoncelli, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa all producing impressive performances.

Current world champion Jorge Lorenzo and new factory Yamaha team-mate Ben Spies were also in fast form on the new YZR-M1 machine to finish consistently in the top six in Malaysia.

Hayden reckons the opening test proved that Ducati clearly has ground to make up ahead of the first race of the final 800cc world championship in Qatar on March 20.

Hayden told MCN: “I would say we’re probably behind. The Honda and Yamaha are rolling pretty good, especially the Honda. I’d say we are behind a little bit but sometimes you just don’t roll our bike off the truck and go. You have to tune them and we had some problems last week with electronics that hopefully we’ll get sorted out. I would say they are clearly stronger than us if we had to race tomorrow, but the good thing is we are not racing tomorrow.”