Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden wants to race the new pneumatic-valve RC212V as soon as possible after successful tests at Catalunya over the past two days.

The former MotoGP champion spent yesterday running race simulation distance on it and managed to consistently lap a second under the pace he set on the valve-spring motor in Sunday's race.

This might be because he got to know the track even better, however.

“The weather definitely was not cooperative today. A few showers would come over every hour, make things just wet enough so we couldn’t get all the work done that we wanted to, but that’s how the weather goes," he said

"Nonetheless we rode the new engine a lot of the day, tried to get it dialled in, but we had a few little problems with it, which was frustrating. We also worked on trying to make the engine better over a long run. I did a run of over 20 laps and was able to stay very consistent which was good. We would’ve liked to have got more time with it, but I’ve seen enough that I like. I’ve got a better feeling with the pneumatic-valve engine, so I look forward to racing it as soon as the guys say it’s ready.”