Hayden looking for a confidence boost

The Repsol Honda rider was keen to put the memories of his difficulties in Qatar, where he crashed twice on the second day, behind him, but wet weather in Spain left him unable to get back into the groove.

And with just two days of pre-season testing remaining before the campaign kicks off at Losail, the American admits that he is feeling behind the game at the moment.

Things were not helped by him feeling uncomfortable on the damp track at Jerez on Friday and ending the day 19th overall.

"Things were going quite smooth after Malaysia," said Hayden, recalling the winter testing programme. "On the last day things went good, we made good progress and then at Phillip Island things got better, better, and better.

"Then at Qatar, the first morning there was great, but then the second day I had two crashes so we've taken a big step back. You know, a lot of today is probably down to the rider, but not much. We still got a little bit of time, but not much."

When asked if his confidence in the bike had been knocked by the crash in Qatar, he simply said: "They probably didn't help."

Hayden admitted that the rain affected first day in Jerez had been a waste of time for him, even though some of his rivals were able to get some useful running under their belt.

"Conditions felt really uncomfortable to me," he said. "I had no confidence pushing - it was definitely frustrating. I was just trying to be smart and not crash. It was close to a wasted day...

"It was still damp in many places and there it was really uncomfortable. It was not a great way to start out the test and not really fun riding around like that.

"But hopefully we get some better weather over these next two days as I've got some things I need to sort out. It ain't pretty. It felt sketchy over the wet patches. If it was dry we didn't really have anything to test as such, just general set up, tyres, suspension things like that."

When asked what he would do if the rain continued on Saturday, he said: "Yeah, I'll go out, but I did manage to get one day of wet riding in at Malaysia in November, but you have to remember that I didn't come here in late November (because of shoulder operation) which doesn't help the situation, but it's not that big a difference."