With all the talk about Honda designing its new 800cc MotoGP bike for the diminutive Dani Pedrosa, the performance of Pedrosa and Hayden so far seem to bear this out. While Pedrosa made the podium in the opening round at Qatar, Hayden struggled and finished in eighth place. Pedrosa has consistently been quicker during testing, as well.
As practice begins for Jerez this weekend, Hayden is again slightly off the pace, while Pedrosa is one of the quickest.
Can Hayden turn it around? It is interesting to note that Honda’s pre-Jerez press release talks up Pedrosa, while seemingly down playing Hayden’s role on the team — despite the fact that Hayden is the existing World champ. This could be explained by the fact that Jerez is Pedrosa’s home track, but it does seem Honda has its hopes on Pedrosa, and not defending champ Hayden, for this year’s championship. Our guess is that Hayden will come up to speed fairly quickly — perhaps even this weekend. He missed some practice following some off-season surgery, and appears to be struggling with his confidence level. We still think he has the talent to fight with the rest of the fast boys and possibly defend his title this year, but he needs to make his move soon or the leaders will get too far ahead in terms of points.
