“Not exactly a spectacular day, really,” he said. “I mean, I obviously, sixth and ninth ain’t really what our goals is. This afternoon was quite strange. Raining one minute. Be interesting if that was the race. Could be kind of fun, though. We haven’t had a half-and-half race all year. Now that my foot’s better, can switch bikes in a hurry, can be kind of exciting, so we’ll see what happens.
“But definitely need to improve a little bit. This isn’t a track I just normally everything goes silky smooth for me anyway. T-1, T-2 ain’t bad, but we need to improve in some areas. But actually I feel pretty confident. Tires are working good this week. And as the track gets better, more grip should help me. Track was pretty dirty to start with. But not bad.”
Hayden said it wasn’t one thing holding him back, “Just a combination of things. A little bit in some of the faster corners, getting it to steer. And getting a drive onto the back straightaway is not really helping me. Top speed ain’t exactly great today either, so….”
The day’s work out of the way, Hayden was asked about the single tire proposal. The initial offer was that each weekend riders would get five tires in each of two compounds, chosen from seven different compounds that will be on offer all year. Rain tires would be limited to four a weekend total, with no qualifying tires or intermediates. That proposal was heavily criticized, mostly because if one compound was clearly inferior, the riders would have to make due with five tires for the weekend.
While most riders had full formed opinions, Hayden thought the first offer might just be the start of the bargaining process.
“They got to start somewhere, but it would be a shame if we only had four rain tires for the weekend,” he said. “We go to like Donington or the way Indy looked, guys wouldn’t really, probably go out Friday morning if it looked like it was going to rain all weekend. you’d want to save them for qualifying and the race. So, sort that out.”
Of equal concern was the abolition of qualifying tires. Hayden is a big fan of the super-sticky rubber and Michelin makes very good qualifiers.
“No qualifiers. I’ll miss the qualifiers,” he said. “It’s an exciting part of the weekend. And to ride one of these bikes on the limit with, ya know, qualifying tire, qualifying engine modes is quite a thrill. And like we had talked in the safety commission, you see guys-where were we at? Phillip Island last week-on the Saturday there, a lot more guys crashed at the end of Saturday morning session than Saturday qualifying because when you try to hang it out on race tires, it’s actually…we don’t have a lot of crashes on qualifying tires, because with the extra grip you can do it. So it will be interesting. It might be a little bit dull. I hope it’s not dull. A guy go out, put in a couple quick times early and you ain’t going to see no red helmets and guys going from 12th to second.”
