Ending his first season in the  FIM World Superbike Championship with a strong top five finish in the championship standings, Nicky Hayden will take what he learnt in 2016 and progress forward on the new Honda CBR1000RR.

Hoping to test the new 2017 model at the test in Jerez in two weeks time, the former MotoGP™ champion is looking forward to this season, once he can put his knee injury sustained over the winter behind him.

Will your recent knee surgery affect your performance this season?

“I hope to be recovered by Phillip Island for sure. It will probably affect me at these next tests, but we still have a month and a half until Phillip Island and I hope by then to be very close to 100%.”

How is your rehabilitation going?

“The doctors are telling me it’s on track and going well. It’s the first time - luckily for me - that I’ve had to deal with knee injuries, and recovery definitely doesn’t happen overnight. It takes some time, but the doctors say it’s recovering as expected and on schedule so I’ve just got to keep going. The plan is to be at the Jerez test (24th-25th Jan).”

What exactly was the injury you sustained?

“I had a complete rupture of the Medial Collateral Ligament (the MCL is one of four major ligaments that are critical to the stability of the knee joint), so I had an MCL repair.
It wasn’t that painful, not that I’m trying to play the hero because I’ve had some little injuries that have really hurt! But this wasn’t like a crash; I just caught and twisted it. I thought ‘man that don’t really feel right’, so I stopped and sat down and it didn’t feel good. I could walk on it but that wasn’t the problem, the problem was it wasn’t stable. It did start to hurt a little bit, but the pain wasn’t the issue, it was the stability.”

How are you feeling ahead of the new season?

“I’m looking forward to ’17 like every year. Last year was my first year in World Superbike and I enjoyed the experience and the team. I had a couple of pretty decent races - getting the win was nice – I also learned a lot. There’s certainly a few races I can definitely do better, so I’m ready to get locked in and try to come out and improve.”

Is there anything you are going to take forward from last season into 2017?

“There’s a lot I can take from last year. In terms of working with the team - I’m basically going to have all the same guys working with me which I’m happy about. I feel like we have a good working relationship and we’re on the same page on a lot of things. Obviously there were a couple of tracks I had to learn but none were too difficult. And I’ve now adjusted to the difference with the atmosphere, the structure, the schedule, and the one bike format. Some things are a bit different with the Superbike as far as approaching the weekend – like knowing you will have the one bike in the sessions. And there are some changes you can’t do with the World Superbike machine I suppose; with the gearing, also different suspension things or different geometry things but I definitely learnt something, so we can improve.”

Finally, the question everyone wants to know – do you know when you will get the new Honda?

“As far as I know the plan is to ride the new bike in Jerez. I don’t want to speak too much but I know that’s the plan. I’ve been in contact with them and from what I’ve heard they’ve had the bike for a couple of days now, so that’s the current situation. It would have been better to have it earlier that’s not a mystery, however the reality is that it took a little longer than we’d hoped. But we’ve got it now and let’s see what Ten Kate can do with it. I know they’re excited because for them it’s like having a new toy, and they did a great job last year. “