Former MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden has completed his first World Superbike test with Honda and ended the fog-interrupted two-day session only 1.5s slower than reigning champ Jonathan Rea at Motorland Aragon.

Hayden turned in a total of 80 laps but only had a limited time due to the difficult weather conditions. His first taste of the new challenge translated into a significant number of new areas to explore – new bike, new tyres, steel brakes and different electronics. The 34-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky has worked tirelessly with the team to get comfortable on his CBR machine with a special focus on the front of the bike and on its electronics.

“Today we were able to improve immediately from yesterday and kept making small steps forward throughout the day. We got a little bit stuck at some stage on pure performance but then we were able to push through and improve under braking and on corner entry,” said Hayden.

“We now have an idea on where we need to improve; we used two bikes with different configurations and I liked some things from both, so now it’s a matter of putting things together and see if the general feeling improves with it. It’s early days still and surely the weather didn’t help but I enjoyed riding the bike and working with the team. Now we have a week off to look through the data before Jerez and I’m looking forward to it. It’s a different kind of track compared to here and we’ll see what happens.”