Shoulder pain sidelines Hayden

Nicky Hayden could only manage 16 laps of running on the second day of MotoGP winter testing at Sepang today before pain from his injured shoulder forced the Ducati rider to pull out.

The American broke his left scapula and fractured two ribs when he fell while training in December. Although he managed 33 laps on the opening day of testing yesterday, today proved harder still.

"I was okay when I first went out this morning, and on my second lap I managed to make a pretty decent step from yesterday. After that I lost strength in the shoulder and wasn’t really able to ride fast or consistently enough to test much. I’m okay under braking because I can lock my shoulder out, but when the bike shakes I don’t have enough strength to hold on. I didn’t want to crash and cause bigger problems, so I just decided to chill out. It’s a bit of a bummer, but that’s how it goes sometimes. They’ve done a great job with the new bike, and you can see just from looking at it that it’s really slick. I just wish I could ride it closer to the edge and really see what it does and how it reacts to changes. Maybe I’ll do a few more laps tomorrow, but that’s about it."