Nicky Hayden has crossed the line in third place at the end of a hard-fought, 25-lap opening World Superbike race in front of his home crowd at Laguna Seca. In doing so, the experienced American rider has claimed the third podium of his rookie WorldSBK season. Michael van der Mark was right behind his Honda WorldSBK team mate in fourth, after a great recovery from eleventh place on the grid.
Hayden got a great launch from row two and was fifth at the exit of turn one; while keeping a solid pace, he was promoted first to fourth and then to third as the two Ducati riders Davies and Giugliano crashed out of contention on lap five and thirteen, respectively. The 34-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, brilliantly held on to the final step of the podium despite the pressure from Alex Lowes and, in the final two laps of the race, by a resurgent van der Mark.
The young Dutchman was able to make up several positions in the early stages despite a small mistake on lap one and, as the race entered its second half, he joined the battle for third place. With a spectacular overtake on Lowes at turn two at the start of the penultimate lap, van der Mark moved up to fourth and set his sights on his team mate; he then dived on the inside of Hayden at the last hairpin, eventually running wide.
The second and last World Superbike race of the US round will get underway tomorrow at 14:30 local time (GMT -7), after the traditional 15-minute warm up scheduled at 11:00.
Nicky Hayden 69
3rd
First of all, I want to thank the fans and the supporters for coming to Laguna this weekend; you can feel a great energy and support I’ve been given is amazing! I got a great start to the race and was fifth early on, but my pace was not as good as we expected. We ran into a few little issues and wasn’t able to brake properly, so I felt I was quite vulnerable in that area. I tried to be as smooth as possible despite the pressure from my rivals and keep a steady rhythm. Luckily I was able to hang on for the podium, but we need to have a look at the data tonight to come up with something for race two. Overall, we must be happy with our third place and we’ll try to do better tomorrow.
Michael van der Mark 60
4th
Superpole wasn’t perfect, so I had to start from eleventh place. I had a good start to the race, but then on the first lap I missed corner and couldn’t get up to speed, so I got passed there. Step by step, I made my way up but despite pushing hard, the gap with Savadori was staying the same and that was a bit frustrating. I was able to get a little bit quicker and pass him, but Lowes wasn’t as easy to overtake. On the last lap, I closed down on Nicky but on the last corner I was simply not close enough to make it stick. Fourth place is a great result nevertheless and I’m back to fourth place in the standings; it’s good that it was Nicky the one getting on the podium today.
Pieter Breddels
Technical Manager
We surely can be happy with third and fourth today; it’s a result that went beyond our expectations after Superpole. Nicky was brilliant in holding on to third, while Michael’s recovery was incredible. Both riders were at the limit with front grip, so it was definitely not an easy race for them. In the morning, we made some geometry changes at the front with Nicky, while also evaluating a different tyre choice. Lack of time was also a problem, because free practice 3 is only 15 minutes, so you have basically to try multiple changes at the same time. Micheal tried different springs for more support but that resulted in a loss of grip, so we decided to go back to the previous choice. Our pace was one second faster than last year, so clearly we made a huge step forwards. Now we find that little extra, maybe a different tyre choice, in order to be even quicker tomorrow.
