Hayden: We didn't knock a wall down but...

Troubled MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden continued his determined quest for a return to full competitiveness with a mammoth 106 testing laps - four laps shy of five full race distances - at Istanbul Park on Monday.

The Repsol Honda rider has recorded just eighth, seventh and seventh places in the opening three rounds of 2007 - although Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix indicated a step forward, since Hayden finished just two seconds from the podium and was the top Michelin rider.

The American further chipped away at his current set-up problems during Monday's test, working through a programme of chassis set-up adjustments and tyre tests that resulted in a best lap time of 1min 53.85secs on race tyres. That time was 0.5secs inside Hayden's fastest lap during the grand prix, and the same margin behind the fastest race tyre lap at the test set by Gresini Honda's Toni Elias.

"My best lap came with a race tyre and 1min 53.8secs is a lot faster than I went over the weekend so that's a good sign - that's basically as fast as I went on Saturday with qualifying tyres," confirmed Hayden. "I know it doesn't count for too much on Monday, but I think we made some slight improvements. We definitely collected some useful information, though it's not like we knocked a wall down or anything. One thing we really worked on was trying to make the front tyres last a little bit longer because I've been hard on front tyres this weekend and I think we achieved that."

Team-mate Dani Pedrosa didn't test due to injuries sustained on the first lap of the grand prix.