Hayden baffled by dismal race

The Repsol Honda rider, who made a good start from sixth on the grid to run as high as fourth in the first lap, suffered a steady drop down the order during the race to end up in a lowly 13th position, 50 seconds behind winner Valentino Rossi and 45 behind teammate Dani Pedrosa.

"This morning we made a nice step, we made a suspension adjustment and the bike felt a lot better, so we had a pretty good pace," explained the American.

"We were certainly unlucky in the race. I got an awesome start, felt pretty good, but it was clear from the beginning that we had a problem. Guys started coming past and there was nothing I could do, there was no way to defend. So I just tried to get to the finish and get a couple of points."

Hayden is now waiting for the team to analyse the RC212V's telemetry.

"They're checking the data now to see exactly what happened," he concluded. "Like I said, we were quite unlucky, I knew we didn't have Rossi's pace this morning, but we had enough pace to be in there, to be quite competitive."