held for the rest of the race. At the new race in San Marino, Hayden finished 13th after a poor start and a crash—involving Randy de Puniet and Pedrosa—forced him into the gravel. At the Portuguese round, Hayden scored his first and only pole position of the season on Saturday, outqualifying Casey Stoner by just 0.040 seconds. However, he would struggle on race day, managing to finish just off the podium in fourth after moving up the order after an early race slump. In Japan, Hayden finished in ninth place. In Australia, Hayden retired for the third time of the season. Hayden started off well, moving up from fourth to second on the opening lap and battling with Stoner at the first half of the race. On lap 11 however, his engine started to lose power, which allowed Rossi to move up to second place. On lap 13, he lost power completely, forcing him to retire. At the last two races of the season—the Malaysian and Valencian Community rounds—Hayden finished ninth and eighth. Hayden finished eighth in the championship with 127 points, 240 points behind the champion Casey Stoner and 115 points behind runner-up and Factory Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa. In 2008, Hayden ran his old number 69 since Casey Stoner earned the right to run the number 1 plate after winning the MotoGP title in 2007. 2008 Hayden finished 10th at the opening race in Qatar and was duly outpaced by his teammate Dani Pedrosa, who finished on the podium in third place. At the next race in Spain, Hayden finished just off the podium in fourth position while his teammate went on to win the race. During the race, he was close to overtaking Jorge Lorenzo, but a mistake with just six laps to go allowed the Spaniard to finish third. Hayden would register his first and only retirement of the season in Portugal. He had dropped back to seventh on the opening lap, before he fought his way back up to fifth place. A crash by Andrea Dovizioso allowed him to move up into fourth position and he was trying to close down a two-second gap to third place Valentino Rossi, but he lost the front of his bike at turn seven and slid out of contention. In the following five rounds, Hayden would not finish higher than sixth. He finished sixth in China, eighth in France,