one before then being passed by Marco Melandri. Hayden fought back, passing Melandri again on the runup to Lukey Heights and closing the gap to Rossi and battling hard with him from laps eight to 17. On lap 17, Hayden would retake the lead from Rossi, but he had slowed down the pace enough for the trio of Melandri, Gibernau and Checa to catch the two at the top. On lap 19, Rossi overtook Hayden before Melandri did the same by taking the position under braking at the Honda hairpin. The pair would swap positions multiple times before Hayden finally found a firm advantage over Melandri, but the combined effect of the squabble and Rossi's victory charge up front, meant that Hayden was now one second behind Rossi with five laps to go. Hayden did everything to close the gap, but Rossi managed to win the race with a 1.007 second lead over him. At the new Turkish GP, Hayden took another third place and at the Valencian Community round, he would narrowly lose out on the race win by 0.097 seconds to race winner Marco Melandri, battling hard on the last lap. Hayden finished third in the championship with 206 points, 161 points behind the champion Valentino Rossi and 14 points behind runner-up Marco Melandri. He scored six podiums—one of which was a win. 2006 After silencing his critics in 2005 by winning his home race and scoring a multitude of podiums, 2006 would be an even better year for the "Kentucky Kid". At the opening round in Spain, Hayden finished third, holding off Toni Elías by less than 0.1 seconds while title defender Valentino Rossi finished 14th after he was crashed out by the same Elías. At the second race in Qatar, Hayden finished in second place with Rossi winning the race. Hayden was running a strong race, even passing Rossi for the lead on lap 19, but ultimately lost out to him on the last lap and crossed the line 0.900 seconds behind Rossi. In Turkey, Hayden would finish third once more after his Factory Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa crashed out of contention at the final stages of the race. This allowed Hayden to take the championship lead from Capirossi by just one point. At the Chinese round, Hayden would record his fourth consecutive podium by finishing second behind his rookie teammate Pedrosa, who won the race.