Repsol Honda back at work

From Repsol Honda

JEREZ, SPAIN -- Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden were back to work at Jerez Monday following yesterday’s Spanish GP which Pedrosa won in brilliant style, Hayden building momentum with a fine ride to fourth.

Pedrosa, whose first win of the year moved him into the World Championship lead, used the day to improve his knowledge of his RC212V with which he had limited preseason testing time due to a broken hand sustained in January. He set the eighth fastest time of 1:40.166.

Hayden evaluated new parts and new settings, working hard to continue the impressive progress he made over the Spanish GP weekend, during which he raced a new chassis for the first time. The American was ninth quickest at 1:40.389.

Both riders used only race tires Monday, while the fastest seven riders used qualifying tires for their best laps.

“Today we worked on basic setup to help us get more familiar with the bike, to know our package better and to find the best direction so we can continue improving," Pedrosa said. "It’s the kind of work we usually do at preseason tests but we weren’t able to do this year because of my injury. It was a necessary job with a lot of stops in the pits but I think it was very useful."

“We learned some stuff today," added Hayden. "We were able to run pretty decent and consistent laps using reference tires and we got some good data, so quite a positive day all in all. We had nothing major to test, just some different clutch options to get into the corners a little bit better and some general setup options, looking for a bit of edge traction to help save the tire over race distance."