After three days of testing at the opulent Sepang circuit in Malaysia, American Nicky Hayden left town smiling for he and his Michelin-shod 2007 RC212V recorded the fastest lap time 2:00.529 (the lap was 1:3 seconds quicker than the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix pole winning lap of Dani Pedrosa). It was an excellent conclusion to Hayden’s three-day test in which he gathered up as much testing data possible for the Honda HRC engineers to chew on over the winter.

The Repsol Honda outfit will next test at the Jerez circuit on November 27, after which the winter MotoGP test ban will take effect from December 1 2007 through January 20 2008.
"Overall we've had a good final day and it was nice to set the fastest time. We wanted to check a couple of details with the 2007 machine just before we said goodbye to it,” Hayden remarked of the Sepang test. “The bike really worked well with the Michelin rear qualifying tire, plus the track has definitely been cleaner at this test than at the race in October and the temperature for that fast lap this morning was a lot better than on the Saturday of the Grand Prix when we qualified – which was about the hottest day of the year here. Today we also worked through a lot of stuff on the new 2008 machine, mainly engine mapping, electronics and tyres before we get to work on the chassis proper in the up-coming tests. We always knew there was hard work ahead starting out with a completely new machine and I'm pleased we've been able to get on with it in the last few days. I improved constantly, which I'm pleased about, and we know what we have to do now. The weather was kind to us today and I had a snake-free day which was a bonus! It's time to go home now and I'm definitely looking forward to the break. I've only been at home for four days in the past six weeks and I've got my brother Tommy's wedding coming up, along with Thanksgiving, so it will be nice to get back."