Hayden happy, but wants more power

The 2006 world champion has been the only rider working on the bike at this week's test, and he has been able to match the performance of this year's bike already.

"Overall I'm really pleased with today," he said. "To match the 2007 machine lap time is very positive.

"We're still looking for a bit more power but it's not easy, the machine is brand new and so all the team is learning."

Hayden was full of praise for the new bike when he rode it at Valencia last week, and he admitted that he did not expect this week's Sepang test to go as well as it has.

"After the Valencia test last week we thought it might be a tough ask to come to Sepang and do as well as we have today," he added. "We thought we'd be further away.

"We played around with engine mapping and tried some front tyre options from Michelin. In the end it was a good day."

Hayden finished the second day of the test with the sixth fastest time, six tenths of a second slower than John Hopkins on the Kawasaki.