HRC representatives recently expressed their dissapointment with the performance of the Repsol Honda MotoGP team – traditionally, the #1 team supported by the Honda factory in MotoGP. Nicky Hayden, a member of the Repsol team (along with Alex Barros), is in the final year of his two-year contract with HRC. He is a “free agent” for 2005. His results have been inconsistent, and he has failed to step up to another level following his rookie year.
Hayden is still a diamond in the rough, and may well be a MotoGP champion someday. One would expect, however, that he will be kept by Honda, but moved away from the Repsol team where there might be less pressure on the young rider. Another option, which has become the subject of speculation following some comments by Jeremy Burgess (Valentino Rossi’s crew chief at Yamaha) regarding Hayden, is that Hayden will join the Yamaha MotoGP squad next year as a teammate to Rossi in place of Carlos Checa.
In any event, as Nicky Hayden has not quite burst onto the scene the way one might have expected, but has posted more than respectable results for his age and experience level, expect to see him in MotoGP next year aboard something other than a Repsol Honda.
