Photography By: Gold & Goose
Bad weather hit the Jerez circuit in Spain today with steady rain falling all morning before giving way to windy but drier conditions in the afternoon. Though most of the day was spent testing wet settings, Marlboro Ducati’s Nicky Hayden came close to matching his best from yesterday when the conditions improved and the 2006 World Champion ended the day with the fastest lap time.
Hayden did his best, a 1:40.755 on his third from last lap on the second day of the three-day test.
“It’s a shame about the weather because I’d like to take advantage of as much time as possible to work on the bike, since I lost so much time in the past few months,” Hayden said in a team release. “That’s how it was today, though, and it does no good to complain, especially since I had the chance to try the GP12 in the rain for the first time, improving my feeling little by little. We took a long break when the track started to dry out, and we put on the slicks at the end – even though there were still some wet patches out there. I was able to do a couple exits to try the two little changes that we’d planned yesterday. Considering that the conditions weren’t perfect, it’s positive that we quickly come close to my best time from yesterday. Now we hope the weather will let us work well tomorrow, because we’d like to improve some details before Qatar – especially with traction in the fast corners.”
Hayden had over a second on his followers with Ducati-mounted Karel Abraham second with a 1:41.661. Yamaha’s Ben Spies ended the day third with his best of 1:41.726.
“It’s been a tough day but it’s been like that for everybody,” Spies said. “Luckily we got a lot of stuff done yesterday, a simulation and most of the test settings. Today we just tested some wet set up stuff. I was quite happy with that, we didn’t get on the track when it was in prime condition for wet but good enough. As the track dried out we needed to wait a little to try one thing in the dry. We know what we need to do for tomorrow so we’re hoping for good weather.”
Saturday Times
1. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 1:40.755
2. Karel Abraham (Ducati) 1:41.661
3. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1:41.726
4. Álvaro Bautista (Honda) 1:42.711
5. Héctor Barberá (Ducati) 1:43.288
