Jerry Burgess praises Nicky Hayden revival

Jerry Burgess praises Nicky Hayden revival



By Matthew Birt -



MotoGP



10 May 2010 10:54



Valentino Rossi’s factory Yamaha crew chief Jerry Burgess has praised American Nicky Hayden’s brilliant revival in 2010.



Hayden has been transformed by Ducati’s smoother Big Bang GP10 motor and he’s claimed successive fourth place finishes in Qatar and Jerez.



And the 2006 world champion’s have caught the eye of Aussie Burgess, who has been the technical architect of Rossi’s seven MotoGP world titles since 2001.



Burgess told MCN: “ I was talking with Filippo Preziosi (Ducati’s technical boss) and I commented how good his bike is and he indicated to me that Nicky had put in an awful lot of work. He endured a lot of hardship and heartbreak during last year and never gave up and they have obviously taken on board Nicky’s experience on the Honda. Without being unfair to Casey (Stoner), he didn't have a lot of experience on anything until he rode the Ducati, so now he has someone there they can bounce some ideas off and I'm sure Casey and Ducati will come up with something that works.”



With Yamaha looking as formidable as ever with Rossi and Fiat-backed team-mate Jorge Lorenzo winning the first two races and Repsol Honda also on the podium twice, Burgess reckons the 2010 campaign could provide some thrilling racing with Hayden back on form.



He added: “It is good to see a rider doing well on Ducati in consecutive races who is not Casey and that can only be good for everybody. There are two good riders at Yamaha, Honda have got two guys now with experience and Ducati have got two guys with experience. So there should be more races with the top six filled by those guys."

Credit where it's due . Nicky is one of the hardest workers in the series. hopefully that work is starting to pay off.

Did I imagine this or is it true that Burgess wanted to work with Nicky when he came into MotoGP? If Nicky can stay on the pointy end this season he will gain some more fans I think.

L8Braker said:

Did I imagine this or is it true that Burgess wanted to work with Nicky when he came into MotoGP? If Nicky can stay on the pointy end this season he will gain some more fans I think.

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Surley he did when Nicky was Rossi's team mate at HRC.

This is the second Nicky Hayden revival. His 2007 season resembled 2009--unmitigated disaster with a few highlights (podiums, poles, etc). His 2010 season has resembled the beginning of 2008 (after he received the real 2008 bike and after the pneumo was developed). In 2008 he finished fourth at Jerez, and after he lobbied Honda to pursue the pneumatic engine and after the development work was complete, Hayden scored quite a few podiums and top results on what was arguably an inferior tire.



It's nice to see he's finally come to grips with the Ducati or the tires (or maybe both were the problem). Either way, he's had this form even during the 800cc era, it's just that he was developing the bike during 2008 and he managed to injure himself in his ill-fated X-games supermoto experience. Otherwise, he would have finished 5th in the championship quite easily, imo.



Maybe Burgess is more shrewd than we realize. Stoner and the GP7/8/9 were the only outfit capable of beating Rossi. Maybe he's praising the fact that Ducati are finishing behind him. Burgess is a sneaky guy.