Nicky Hayden · Biography

Nicholas Patrick Hayden made his MotoGP debut at the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix, the opening round of the season, as Valentino Rossi’s teammate in the factory Repsol Honda team. Born on 30 July 1981 in Owensboro, Kentucky, he was known in the paddock as “the Kentucky Kid”. He won the premier-class world title in 2006 and died on 22 May 2017 in Cesena, Italy, five days after being hit by a car while out training on his bicycle.

A racing family from Kentucky

Hayden came up through American dirt-track racing alongside his brothers Tommy and Roger Lee, both of whom also raced professionally. The three once filled a podium on their own: at the 2002 Springfield TT they finished first, second and third, in that order. On asphalt he made his name in 1999, when he won the AMA Supersport championship on a privateer Honda. That title earned him a place in the factory American Honda set-up.

AMA Superbike champion in 2002

Riding the factory team’s Honda RC51, Hayden had his best season in the United States in 2002. He won the Daytona 200 and took the AMA Superbike championship, becoming the youngest champion the series had ever had. That autumn Honda promoted him to MotoGP for the following year, straight into the factory team next to the reigning world champion, without passing through the smaller Grand Prix classes.

The Repsol Honda years

His first season in the world championship ended in fifth place with 130 points. His first podium came at the 2003 Pacific Grand Prix, where he was classified third after Makoto Tamada was disqualified. He finished eighth in 2004 and moved forward in 2005: third overall with 206 points and a first win at the 2005 United States Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, where he also took his first pole in the class.

The 2006 season brought the title. He won the Dutch TT at Assen and won again at Laguna Seca. The championship was still open at the final round, the Valencian Community Grand Prix. Rossi crashed on lap five and finished thirteenth; Hayden came home third and claimed the MotoGP world title by five points, 252 to 247. He stayed with Honda for two more years, finishing eighth in 2007 and sixth in 2008.

Ducati and the Aspar team

In 2009 he joined Ducati, where he spent five seasons. He was thirteenth in his first year and scored his first podium for the Italian manufacturer at the Indianapolis Grand Prix. In 2010 he finished seventh, with a third place at Aragón, and in 2011 eighth, with another third at the Spanish Grand Prix. He closed his Ducati spell with ninth place in both 2012 and 2013.

In 2014 and 2015 he raced for the Aspar team on customer-specification Hondas: the RCV1000R in 2014, when he finished sixteenth, and the RC213V-RS in 2015, when he was twentieth. In 2016 he returned to MotoGP twice as a replacement rider: at Aragón with Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS in place of Jack Miller, and in Australia with Repsol Honda in place of Dani Pedrosa. His world championship record reads 218 starts, three wins, 28 podiums and five poles.

World Superbike and his death in Italy

In 2016 he moved to the Superbike World Championship with the Ten Kate Honda team. On 15 May 2016 he won the second race at Sepang, Malaysia, his first victory in the series, and ended the year fifth. He stayed with Ten Kate for 2017. On 17 May that year, while training on his bicycle in Misano Adriatico, near Rimini, he was struck by a car. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, was moved from Rimini hospital to the Maurizio Bufalini Hospital in Cesena, and died there on 22 May 2017, aged 35.

Tributes

MotoGP retired the number 69 in his honour. In 2018 he was posthumously inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and that same year Turn 18 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin was officially renamed “Hayden Hill”. In 2021 he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.