Hayden best time in first night practice in Qatar

The first practice session on the night of Saturday to Sunday on the Losail circuit (Qatar), in the middle of the desert, was severely disrupted by … the rain! Nicky Hayden sets the best time of the first day of practice ahead of Melandri and Kallio.

Rain and sand accumulated in turns 11 and 12 severely disrupted testing at the Losail circuit in Qatar, which will host the resumption of hostilities at MotoGP 2009 on April 12 at night….

Nicky Hayden still won in 2: 00.717, but his teammate Casey Stoner chose not to shoot on the circuit he considered too dangerous while Valentino Rossi (Yamaha), preferred to retire after only one lap.

"These five minutes of rain really gave us a lot of problems today. At first we waited, but finally we decided to give up", explains the reigning world champion."I hope that tomorrow everything will be back to normal because it was our worst race last year (read, NDLR) and we need some time to know where we are and to continue improving our new package".

First night of testing in Losail

Nicky Hayden (USA / Ducati) 2: 00.717 (31 laps) Marco Melandri (ITA / Kawasaki) 2: 00.867 (35) Mika Kallio (FIN / Ducati) 2: 01.020 (29) Alex De Angelis (SMR / Honda) 2: 01.074 (15) Niccolò Canepa (ITA / Ducati) 2: 01.328 (26) Chris Vermeulen (AUS / Suzuki) 2: 01.843 (6) Yuki Takahashi (JPN / Honda) 2: 03.221 (18) Andrea Dovizioso (ITA / Honda) 2: 03.233 (15) James Toseland (GBR / Yamaha) 2: 03.417 (7) Randy De Puniet (FRA / Honda) 2: 03.580 (18) Colin Edwards (USA / Yamaha) 2: 03.652 (5) Toni Elias (ESP / Honda) 2: 08.637 (3) Jorge Lorenzo (ESP / Yamaha) 2: 24.832 (1) Valentino Rossi (ITA / Yamaha) 2: 31.872 (1)

As for the Italian Marco Melandri, who should finally participate in the 2009 championship riding a single private Kawasaki (read), he achieved the second fastest time in front of another private motorcycle ridden by a newcomer in the premier class, Finnish Mika Kallio (Ducati).

“I had never seen rain in Qatar in my entire life and I never expected to see it, but today we had barely put the motorcycles on the track when it started to rain"says Nicky Hayden."The track was tricky and without much feeling, so we could not do the expected work".

Same story for Randy de Puniet (Honda), 10th fastest in 2’03.580, who regrets having only been able to cover 18 laps: "after the first test session held in Malaysia, I was really impatient to get back on the handlebars but the weather conditions today were really not the game! We only covered 18 laps as some portions of the track were more than tricky with rain and sand coming from the surrounding desert. However, we had a fairly substantial list of details to work out on the bike … We just have to wait now to see what will happen tomorrow. !”

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