Hayden was hampered at the Spanish round by an inflammation of the right wrist that required surgery during the winter.

Even though it did not stop him from racing at Jerez it did rule him out of the post-race test but a period of rest and recovery has done him good and he is fit to ride again this weekend.

Speaking to motogp.com during a Wednesday pre-event visit to Disneyland Paris, the 2006 MotoGP™ World Champion commented, “Of course we expect to keep improving. Jerez I would say was our best race so far this season, even though position wise it wasn’t much different. In fifth position (Andrea) Dovizioso was eight seconds in front of us and of course that is still not good enough, but it’s better than at the first few races. I think we don’t have to give ourselves too much credit though, as the track suited our bike a bit more.”

In 2010 at Le Mans Hayden finished fourth, and was the first Ducati rider across the line – his best ever result at the French GP. Last year he finished fifth in France, his best result of the 2013 season, but he insists he does not always find things easy in France.

“Le Mans is a difficult track for me,” he explained. “In the past it has never been my best track. But it’s always interesting, conditions can change very quickly on race day, and I look forward to getting on track on Friday and seeing how my wrist is feeling. I don’t see the bike changing much for a while, though we have a few things that we’re working on, we changed the geometry a bit in Jerez and it worked better so we’ll probably start with that set-up.”

“I need to understand how much my wrist irritation from Jerez has improved and try to keep the progress we made in Spain rolling.”