The Red Bull Honda team, running the new Fireblade in 2017, had a tough opening round of the WSBK championship in Australia and life did not get any easier at the second round in Thailand.

As expected, the much anticipated 2017 CBR1000RR is still some way from being the usable package its decade-old predecessor was. Work done by the team, along with technical partners Akrapovič and Cosworth, brought a more linear engine response since Phillip Island but, according to Nicky Hayden, it is still no great improvement.

“It was maybe a little better in fifth and sixth, but we had a lot of problems with the engine brake this morning,” he said on Friday. “From one lap to the next it was not the same, which was quite frustrating.”

Things were marginally better on race day but the bike was still not consistent for engine braking.

Hayden and teammate Stefan Bradl finished Race 1 at the bottom of the top 10; Hayden improved marginally in the second race with a hard-fought seventh place while Bradl crashed out on lap five.

Hayden did not conceal his disappointment with the Honda

By Gordon Ritchie