Nicky Hayden has added his voice to the chorus of riders suggesting that excessively hard tires caused the spate of accidents at the end of qualifying at Laguna Seca.
Following on from Hayden and Chris Vermeulen's accidents in the morning practice session, front row qualifiers and title contenders Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner had spectacular accidents on their last qualifying runs.
Both escaped with only minor injuries and expect to race on Sunday, but Hayden said the trend for accidents on cold tires was a worry.
"It got pretty gnarly at the end of the session there," he said. "A lot of guys were crashing and there were yellow flags everywhere.
"People thought getting rid of qualifying tires would make things safer but when grid positions are as important as they are at a circuit like this you're going to have guys hanging it out for a fast lap on a race tire, and that ain't so safe.
"I don't remember a dry qualifying session with so much carnage at the end and it's something we need to look at."
Valentino Rossi had already suggested that the difficulty in warming the tyres was a major factor in the accidents, a theory confirmed by Stoner and Lorenzo when they were allowed to return from the medical center.