Honda riders just miss top 10

From Repsol Honda

At the Gran Premio Cinzano di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini on Friday Nicky Hayden made his return to action following a foot injury sustained in a Supermoto incident at the Los Angeles X Games on Aug. 1.

The American cracked two bones in his right heel and is still walking with the aid of a walking stick or crutches because the less weight he puts on the foot, the quicker the bones will heal. A crash late on Friday did not appear to have worsened his condition, as he ended the day 11th.

"Things went pretty decent, considering," Hayden said. "Not fantastic or nothing, but the bike was working pretty good, the tires were working a lot better than they have the last couple of weeks, so a big thanks to Michelin for doing a good job here.

"It's not the most pleasant ride of my life, but I expected that. In some of the right-hand corners I'm probably not as quick as I should be, but in T2 and T4 which are pretty much all left-hand corners I'm one of the quickest. In some of the rights the injury is a little bit of a hindrance, but it's not a big deal."

Dani Pedrosa, meanwhile, is working to regain his normal rhythm following the injuries he suffered at Sachsenring in July and his difficult Czech visit two weeks ago. The Spaniard is confident he can improve his pace tomorrow as he continues to rebuild confidence aboard his Repsol Honda RC212V.

"It has been a difficult but important day," said Pedrosa, who was 12th on Friday. "We are not happy with the result but I am happy because we are working to get me back into my rhythm which I had lost after missing Laguna, doing no real training in the summer break and then having lots of problems at Brno. We had a long debrief at the end of today, analyzing all the data, and for sure we can improve our lap times tomorrow."