Hayden underwhelmed by lap times after hitting walls

Nicky Hayden feels his lap times at the in-season World Superbike test at Misano weren't representative of the gains he aimed for on the Ten Kate-prepared Honda.

The former MotoGP world champion ended the test 10th on the combined results with a best lap of 1m 35.565s, around 0.9s off timesheet topper Tom Sykes.

Despite enjoying a useful test in difficult conditions running software upgrades inside a full testing programme Hayden had been hoping for faster times.

"We made a few gains but also hit a few walls, which is normal in testing," Hayden said. "I hoped I would have made a bigger step because my lap-times were similar to the ones I did at the start of the month.

"We started the day in the damp and used our time to try some software updates, basically in and out laps. Everything seemed to be working quite well. Throughout the day we tried a good variety of things, including suspension settings, for the second part of the season.

"We gave the team a lot of data to work on and hopefully we can put it all together for Laguna."

Hayden also commended Pirelli with its new front and rear tyre compounds testing in Misano and is thoroughly impressed by the manufacturer's input.

"Just before lunch I tried some new Pirelli tyres with some good positives," he said. "I must say I'm surprised about the huge amount of work they are putting even though they're the sole supplier for the series."