Honda

A little-known fact regarding the Repsol Honda MotoGP team is that the RC211V race bikes that World Champion Nicky Hayden and teammate Dani Pedrosa rode during the 2006 season were not the same. While Pedrosa was riding what was basically an 2005 211V with minor chassis and engine updates, Hayden was pressured to ride the heavily revised New Generation model featuring a completely new engine and chassis that was the basis for the company's latest RC212V 800cc MotoGP machine.

In short, Hayden ended up being a test rider of sorts. While MotoGP rookie Pedrosa and other Honda satellite team riders like Fortuna Honda's Marco Melandri and Toni Elias quickly grabbed victories during the season on the well-sorted 2005 RCV, Hayden struggled with a number of teething problems on the 2006 model that nearly undermined his ultimately successful championship campaign. Interestingly, Honda officials admitted at the fourth round of the 2006 MotoGP championship that the New Generation model was brought into service a little prematurely and that it didn't yet have the potential to win races before admitting later in the year that Hayden had been riding the bike from the season's start.

Thus in Valencia after the final GP of the season eager to sample the same machine that took Hayden to the title. Unfortunately, Honda Europe apparently had a large number of people clamoring to ride the bike and for various reasons racers were stuck with riding Pedrosa's updated 2005 machine. With 2006 being the last year for the 990cc RC211V in any form before it shrank to the mandated 800cc displacement. Honda introduced the bike in 2002 and updated in the two successive years.