Nicky Hayden On The MotoGP World Championship — Determined

Nicky Hayden rolled into his grid position for the '07 Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix knowing he couldn't win. It was not a good feeling.

The Kentucky Kid was having a dismal year in defense of his '06 MotoGP World Championship. But he'd made recent progress, arriving in Monterey on the strength of two consecutive podiums. And yet back at the circuit where he'd dominated the first two USGPs, he knew the best he could hope for was a podium spot, and even that was a long shot.

"Honestly, we had no chance to beat [Casey] Stoner there," Hayden says as the fourth running of the race in Monterey approaches. "I think maybe I could have fought with Marco [Melandri, the third-place finisher] for a podium or this and that. But to be completely honest, it's not like some points were going to help me. And after winning two years in a row on your home ground . . . I don't want to say, because it would have been nice for the team and also maybe for the fans to have an American on the podium, but let's be real: What's a podium really mean when you've been on top of it two years in a row? Nothing's going to compare to that."

The problem last year was tires. Hayden says Laguna was "the worst race of the year for Michelin tires and probably the worst track I've encountered for tire problems. But that weekend, honestly, to think we were going to fight for victory wasn't even an option. I think a lot of it was maybe our own fault, because the tires we had chosen there in our allocation on Thursday just didn't work. The year before it was so hot and the tarmac was completely different. Not to say that Michelin didn't probably have some tires in their box that would've worked. Just didn't seem we had 'em or really any Michelin guy had 'em."

But that was last year, and this year Hayden believes he can win again in Monterey. He believes the motorcycle is now good enough, and he also believes Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) will deliver the pneumatic-valve engine it rolled out for the end of the '07 season Valencia test. A two-day test following the mid-May French GP was shortened to one when the engine failed to materialize. But it was soon revealed that the engine was to appear within a month.

When Hayden first tested the new engine he was impressed by how high it revved. "I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'Man, I should be shifting' and had to just tell myself to wait on the rev limiter because it would rev so high. That was the biggest thing." The engine made good power on top but nothing on the bottom, and there were flat spots in the middle. At the moment the team is using the same conventional-valve engine, the one Dani Pedrosa chose. Hayden says it has less power in some places than his 2007 motor, but it was good enough to power his much lighter teammate Pedrosa to victory in Jerez, Spain. "I would just as soon have my complete engine from last year," Hayden says. "[That one] runs a little better on top."

Because of his size and weight, Pedrosa can get away with less power, which ensures better fuel economy. Hayden isn't so fortunate. "And the fuel consumption for me, a lot of times in the race I have to lean it down. Our bike, the engine's good in the rain; it's really smooth. It puts down the power good. But it could just do with some more rpm and some more juice in the places that we need to stretch our legs." Before each race the team chooses an engine map they believe will use most but not all of the fuel. If they make it back with 0.4 liters, they consider it wasteful. The ECU also continuously calculates fuel usage during the race and sometimes leans itself out to conserve fuel. "It's not like it goes on two cylinders and starts backfiring, but you can feel it. It runs lean. It gets a little jumpy," Hayden admits.

The electronics are credited with allowing rookies to be competitive. Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo won in only his third MotoGP race. But in his fourth race at the Shanghai circuit in China he was viciously high-sided, proving that electronics aren't a cure-all.