Hayden officially joins Marlboro Ducati

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2008-09-15 Hayden officially joins Marlboro Ducati
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Ducati Corse announced today that Nicky Hayden will join its factory MotoGP team for 2009. The 27-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, will line up alongside Casey Stoner and will make his debut on the Desmosedici GP9 on the 27th October in a test immediately following the Valencia Grand Prix. Hayden arrives at Ducati after six years in MotoGP with Honda, the highlight coming in 2006 when he was crowned World Champion. His aggressive riding style and amenable character have made him an extremely popular rider - both on the track and off it.

Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Corse CEO:
We are really happy to have Nicky join us. We are certain that his never-say-die attitude, riding style and character will be great additions to our team in 2009. I would like to thank HRC for allowing Nicky to start testing our bike immediately after the Valencia Grand Prix. I would also like to thank Marco Melandri for his professionalism during a difficult year, which was below all our expectations. Unfortunately his feeling with the Desmosedici was never good enough to allow him to ride as well as he can. We wish him all the best for the future.

Nicky Hayden:
I’ve been with Honda a long time. I owe a big thanks to everybody who’s ever worked with me at Honda, from my AMA days to my rookie year in MotoGP, right up to now. I’ve worked with a lot of great people at HRC, Honda and Repsol too. It was always my big dream as a kid to race for this team. It’s something I’ve enjoyed a lot. I want to thank everybody there, all the guys from tyre technicians to crew chiefs and all the way up. Sure, it hasn’t just been one big holiday, along the way there’s been some tough days but a lot of good days too. Winning the World Championship was by far the highlight of my career so far, plus I won a couple championships in America with Honda, the Supersport championship, the Superbike title and the Daytona 200. And I won some dirt track with Honda too: I won Springfield short track twice, the Peoria TT, in all four Grand National dirt tracks. Winning MotoGP rookie of the year in 2003 was quite an achievement against Bayliss, Edwards and Melandri, that was something I was pretty proud of. And of course my two MotoGP wins at Laguna were awesome experiences. I’d just like to thank everyone, and the best way to thank them is to put up some results these last few races. That’s the plan.

NICKY HAYDEN’S HONDA HIGHLIGHTS
1999 AMA 600 Supersport Champion (Honda CBR600)
2nd AMA Formula Xtreme (Honda CBR900)
2000 2nd AMA Superbike (Honda RC51)
4th AMA 600 Supersport (Honda CBR600)
2001 3rd AMA Superbike Championship (Honda RC51)
2002 AMA Superbike Champion (Honda RC51)
Daytona 200 winner (Honda RC51)
2003: 5th MotoGP World Championship (Repsol Honda RC211V)
2004: 8th MotoGP World Championship (Repsol Honda RC211V)
2005: 3rd MotoGP World Championship (Repsol Honda RC211V)
2006: MotoGP World Champion (Repsol Honda RC211V)
2007: 8th MotoGP World Championship (Repsol Honda RC212V)

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