We hope all your wishes come true!

Next up is Assen on Saturday, a track Nicky loves and always has gone well at, so hopefully then we will see him break through and take his first podium of the 2010 season!

The pair will start in fifth and sixth places for the first British motorcycle grand prix to be held at the Northamptonshire track since 1986, with Hayden lapping just 0.062sec quicker than 20-time race winner Stoner.

Hayden beat Stoner for the first time, in a race they both finished as team-mates, at Jerez earlier this year.

“We made a step forward today,” said Hayden. “Yesterday I knew that we weren’t as far off as we seemed and even though we didn’t quite have the right feeling for the conditions a few small changes have helped make us faster.

“We’ll find out exactly where we are when the lights go out tomorrow.”

Press opportunities held away from the racetrack often see reporters from a range of publications invited to interview MotoGP riders to raise wider publicity for an upcoming race.

That in turn means the riders often face questions about subjects other than racing and, during last Wednesday’s press event at the Lords cricket ground, this light-hearted exchange took place between 2006 world champion Nicky Hayden and a non-motorsports reporter.

It’s safe to say Nicky would rather have been talking racing…

Quite a few of the girls were excited about you coming here. What do you think of that side of the sport?

Hayden:
Yeah, I mean I don’t [laughs nervously]. I’m not a playboy or nothing, I’m just into racing… I mean, any guy that says they don’t like [the attention] would be lying somewhat, but I don’t get too caught up in that part of it.

Is there a Mrs Hayden?

No, no. Single. [Pause]. Make sure you print that too: ‘Single’. Don’t leave that part out!

Single and looking?

Yeah [shrugs] I’m a 28-year-old guy. I mean, I’m not out looking with a flashlight, scraping every street up and down or anything!

Not yet?

No… but, you know.

Pos. Num. Rider Nation Team Bike Km/h Time Gap 1st/Prev.
1 99 Jorge LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha 317.6 2′03.308
2 14 Randy DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP Honda 320.1 2′03.434 0.126 / 0.126
3 26 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 323.9 2′03.586 0.278 / 0.152
4 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Repsol Honda Team Honda 322.0 2′03.995 0.687 / 0.409
5 69 Nicky HAYDEN USA Ducati Team Ducati 316.9 2′04.332 1.024 / 0.337
6 27 Casey STONER AUS Ducati Team Ducati 319.2 2′04.394 1.086 / 0.062
7 11 Ben SPIES USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 313.9 2′04.477 1.169 / 0.083
8 33 Marco MELANDRI ITA San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 321.9 2′04.555 1.247 / 0.078
9 58 Marco SIMONCELLI ITA San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 315.7 2′04.868 1.560 / 0.313
10 5 Colin EDWARDS USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 313.3 2′05.035 1.727 / 0.167
11 40 Hector BARBERA SPA Paginas Amarillas Aspar Ducati 319.1 2′05.354 2.046 / 0.319
12 7 Hiroshi AOYAMA JPN Interwetten Honda MotoGP Honda 320.5 2′05.712 2.404 / 0.358
13 41 Aleix ESPARGARO SPA Pramac Racing Team Ducati 315.4 2′05.748 2.440 / 0.036
14 65 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 317.9 2′05.821 2.513 / 0.073
15 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA SPA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 316.8 2′06.607 3.299 / 0.786
16 36 Mika KALLIO FIN Pramac Racing Team Ducati 312.9 2′06.980 3.672 / 0.373

The American qualified 16th and finished 12th last season, a result that contributed to what had become a difficult start to life as a Ducati rider.

However, twelve months on and Hayden has revived his fortunes, gelling well with the GP10 to take on team leader Casey Stoner and sit fifth in the standings with a trio of fourth place finishes to his name.

With this in mind, he is confident he can make amends for last year with a much better performance for his employers.

“I can’t wait to go to Mugello and banish the memory of last year, when I was quite slow in front of the Italian fans and so many people from Ducati. Actually things went better in the race than they had done in practice but then I suffered a problem with my rear brake and the result was anything but good.

“We’re going into a run of races that could be quite decent for us and we’re confident. Mugello is a circuit that can be really nice to ride or really tough, depending on whether you can get your bike working well and have a good set-up.

“If you manage that you can have some serious fun. I’m expecting to see a lot of Ducati fans so hopefully I can have fun and they can too.”

“Fourth place is no disaster but I was hoping to stay closer to the top three towards the end and put up a bit of a fight. I’m not happy to be nine seconds adrift but we’re trying to build something here and we’ve had another solid weekend. The team, the bike, everything has been great this weekend but we just fell a couple of tenths short on race day. To be honest I thought we might find a little extra for the race, like we did in Qatar, but it wasn’t to be. Like I said yesterday my guys worked like dogs to put me in this position today and we’ve got more to do tomorrow so I want to give a big thanks to them. This is the Ducati factory team and we don’t jump up and down at fourth place but we’ll take it. We got some great data to work from that should help us be stronger at Le Mans and hopefully we can keep this upward trend going.”