Nicky Hayden is hoping a return to the Motorland Aragon track in Spain next week will spark a major revival in fortunes for the American.
Hayden enjoyed his best race of 2010 at the impressive new Motorland Aragon track when he passed Jorge Lorenzo on the final lap to claim third place.
With Casey Stoner surging to his first win of the season too, the Motorland Aragon proved to be the best race of a difficult season for Ducati.
But Hayden and team-mate Valentino Rossi will head to the state-of-the-art track next week facing an impossible task of repeating last year’s doube rostrum.
Hayden is currently in a nightmare spell having dropped from fifth to last in his home race in Indianapolis and in Misano last weekend he suffered another horror show.
Hayden crashed out on the third lap and in the last four years he’s not scored a single point in Misano.
The 2006 world champion though remains positive that he can turn his form around at the Motorland Aragon and he told MCN: "It probably won’t be quite as good as last year but that was clearly our best race. I’m trying to be positive and truthfully we should be closer there. The track was brand new last year and completely smooth, so we’ll see how well it has held up.
"Last year it was really grippy but the key is there are a lot of corners that have open exits with no hairpins. Our bike doesn’t turn and it is hard to finish the corner, so last year after the race Filippo (Preziosi) asked me why he thought we went so well there and it was because there was no bumps, there was a lot of grip and the corners had a lot of open exits. Turning is important there but it is not a must.
"Hopefully we can be like last year and have the best weekend of the season. That would be nice and I could do with catching a break soon."
source: MCN
