Hayden gets New Crew Chief: Will there be a Miracle at Le Mans?
Nicky Hayden is clearly struggling on the Ducati in MotoGP this year. His results from the first 3 rounds are 12th, DNF and 17th. He has been beaten on a Ducati by series rookie, Mika Kallio, and suffered the ignominy of finishing behind fellow Ducati racer, Sete Gibernau, in Jerez. Meanwhile his teammate, Casey Stoner, is 2nd in the World Championship standings. Now Ducati has announced that Juan Martinez will rejoin Ducati as Hayden’s crew chief.
Coming just after the announcement that Troy Bayliss will test the Ducati GP9 racer in Mugello this week, Ducati seems to be acknowledging that only Stoner is able to routinely put the GP9 at the front of the field.
As Ducati’s MotoGP Project Director Livio Suppo explains, “After the race at Jerez, which was fantastic for Casey but very difficult for Nicky, we had a few meetings to analyse our technical and organisational structure, with the goal of improving the all-round performances of our riders.” “We came to the conclusion that after starting the season with some of the Ducati riders unable to match their positive form in winter testing, maybe this is the right time to introduce some new technical ideas in terms of the electronics as well as boosting our track presence in order to provide all of the Ducati riders with better support. The GP9 is still a very young machine and for the first time in MotoGP we have five bikes on the grid,” continued Suppo.
link: The Official MotoGP Website
Hayden, who has admittedly been hampered by injury and some bad luck, has been totally off the pace. Crucially he also performed poorly at the pre-season tests with the exception of Losail. In public the factory has shown only praise for their newest factory rider, but if Hayden’s form doesn’t make a dramatic turn around soon, this sentiment might begin to change.
Hayden remains an extremely popular rider with fans but has struggled ever since his World Championship victory in 2006. Nicky gets his first chance to make progress this weekend at the French grand prix at Le Mans on May 17th.
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