Hayden thrilled by return to form

The Repsol Honda rider has been in rejuvenated form at Donington Park, with revised settings finally allowing him to unlock more speed from his bike. He took fourth place on the grid, his best qualifying performance of the season, and is excited about his prospects for the race.

"I have to say that I am looking forward to tomorrow a lot more than I have," said Hayden. "It is a lot easier going to sleep needing three or four tenths than needing one second.

"It is going to be hard to find that, but I feel like that if we tune it up a little bit (we can do it). The race? It is hard to say what the guys will do but I am really looking forward to tomorrow to do my best result (of the year)."

Hayden's best grid position before this weekend was sixth in Turkey, but he has yet to finish higher than seventh so far this campaign - which he did in Spain and Turkey.

And the improved settings he discovered in the post-Barcelona test have left Hayden in a more upbeat mood than he has been at any point during the difficult start to the campaign.

"I have had a lot of fun riding the bike here," said Hayden, who indicated the step forward he has made with the fastest time in final free practice this morning.

"It is nice to see red helmets (indicating fastest sector times) and seeing the light on the board coming on. You know when you feel like you do a good lap.

"Being fastest in free practice doesn't really count but lately good days have been hard to come by, so I tried to enjoy that. It is nice to come around and see P1 on your board at the end of the session, when it was over.

"Hopefully we can turn it into a good race result tomorrow. I thought maybe I could get it onto the front row, but with my last qualifier I only improved two tenths, which is not enough

"It is the best I qualified though and I want to take advantage of it in the race tomorrow. I want to get in there and try and learn some stuff.

"Most races this year I kind of went backwards and after the first lap or two most of the boys disappeared. So I definitely want to try and get a good start, try and take advantage of it and not just for getting a good result. I want to try and study these guys on these bikes and learn something."