Hayden hampered by tyre damage

The American had already lost 17 seconds to the leaders trying to get back onto the track after the crash, and then struggled with a chunked rear tyre throughout the rest of the race.

Randy de Puniet had triggered the first corner melee, possibly by touching his front brake lever against Dani Pedrosa's Honda - causing the Kawasaki to crash into Pedrosa, and forcing Hayden to take to the gravel to avoid running over both of them.

"I blew the start and there's really no excuse for it when you're on the front row. I muffed that one up," Hayden said.

"It was all I could do to not run over De Puniet's head...

"I then found I'd lost a chunk out of the right side of the rear tyre.

"When you go off with these tyres it's easy to cut them. The left hand side of the tyre took eight laps to get back up to temperature."

The damage meant that Hayden could only recover to 13th, nearly a minute and a half behind the victorious Casey Stoner.