By Stephen English

Nicky Hayden's future continues to be the centre of speculation in Misano, with MotoGP options on the table from both Forward Racing (Yamaha) an🤡d Aspar Aprilia as well as WSBK offers.

The former world champion has made clear that his goal is to remain in 🌌MotoGP and, while he is not ready to announce a deal for 2014, speaking after Sund💝ay's San Marino race Hayden dropped his biggest hint yet that a move to Aprilia could be on the cards.

"I have a couple of options in MotoGP. It's not a done deal with Aprilia but I went there last week and I was really impressed by what I saw," said Hayden. "I met with Aspar and their guys and I really liked their professionalism and how꧒ focused🤪 they are on racing. They've got a good thing going so we'll see what happens."

Meanwhile, with the MotoGP field remaining at Misano for a test on Monday, Hayden had expected to be riding the new Ducati chassis - as used by team-mate Andrea Dovizioso in recent rac𓃲es. But on Thursday, Ducati team management told Hayden that this was no longer possible due to a "lack of materials."

Hayden was clearly frustrated to no 𒈔longer have the opportunity to try the new bike, having been led to believe that he woᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚuld ride the machine even though he is leaving the team at the end of the season.

"We're going to test tomorrow but it's frustrating because I was told all along that I'd be testing the new bike but now that's not happening," he said. "I'm not sure [what happened] but they say that they don't have the materials. It's a littleꦇ touchy because all 🐻along I'd been led to believe that I would test it but then I found out on Thursday that they don't have the parts. I'm not convinced it's a lot better but I would have liked to have tried it."

Hayden rode to ninth place in Sunday's race, one place and two-seconds behind Dovizioso, during what was his laꦯst grand prix on Italian asphalt for Ducati.

"Today was extremely tough," said Hayden. "I got a t🦋errible start which was my 🅘fault. Espargaro went so early and I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I was distracted a little bit when the light went off and I made a terrible start. I was able to make up a couple of positions in the first couple of corners and even got past Dovi but I couldn't put any gap to him.

"He came past me 🌊about lap ten and I j🍃ust tried to see where I could learn something from him but on about lap 20 I ran wide braking on the back straight and had to pick it up and lost a couple of seconds and I was never able to bring the gap back to Dovi. We had hoped to be closer this weekend, it's a tough one but there's still five to go."