American Nicky Hayden (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) finished his first race around the Chang International Circuit in ninth position, following a tough Superpole working through Saturday’s intense heat.

Continuing to build and shape the new Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2, the team are working their way through any problems encountered, and Hayden was happy with the consistent pace he was getting around the Buriram Circuit.

Only his second race weekend on the bike, the 35 year old looks to the positives as he carved his way through from 14^th position on the grid.

Hayden explained his weekend so far: “We’ve had a lot of problems with engine braking on corner entry, but we’re trying to make the bike consistent. We changed some stuff for qualifying that seemed to be a little bit better for most the track.”

Continuing to discuss the race, in which riders met track temperatures of over 40⁰C: “Ninth position and 30 seconds back is not great, but a little bit better than the rest of the weekend. I was able to do my best lap so far after about eight laps in the race and put in some decent pace. We definitely learnt something for tomorrow, we did a good race and got a decent result, it’s nothing to celebrate but it is what it is.”

Rookie to the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, Stefan Bradl (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) finished the race just one position behind Hayden, in tenth but also understands there is a lot of work to do aboard his new Honda machine.

Making improvements on the first round back in Australia, the German rider is keen to continue to make steps forward and understands which areas of the Buriram based circuit require the most work tomorrow.

 “We finished in tenth which is ok, but we didn’t improve throughout the weekend so far. The only good point was that I was able to get a bit consistent throughout the race, and my lap time was only one tenth slower than my fastest lap overall. This is a positive sign, but I couldn’t use the potential of my new tyre in the beginning. When I got my rhythm I was able to be consistent and this is something positive compared to Australia. But we still have a lot of work in front of us. We are just trying to take things step by step, and at least we finished in the top ten. Tomorrow is a different day and we have to start from zero again, but we will try to make it better in the first part of the race, as the second was not so bad.”