Pedrosa reflects on first day back on track

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa is enjoying himself in the Czech Republic and he returned to free practice action after the summer break as Friday’s third best performer. Dani Pedrosa’s job on Saturday will be to chase down Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi at the head of the timesheets, just as he will attempt to do in the World Championship standings in the final seven races of 2009. Riding pain-free unlike on several occasions this season, Pedrosa hopes to show his best form for the remainder of the year starting at this weekend’s Cardion ab Czech Republic Grand Prix and he made a decent start on Friday. Having lapped third quickest in FP1 he stated, “On the track the feeling was good, especially on the racing line, although outside it was a little bit dirty, but not so bad. Also the lap times were pretty good for a Friday. Everything was ok on the tyres even though the track is aggressive towards them here, so you have to work on this point to make sure you have good tyre life. On the new swingarm fitted to the RC212V this weekend at Brno, Pedrosa stated, “It is just a small modification to help improve corner entry but we need to make more laps with it yet.” Further to HRC’s Friday announcement that Pedrosa and his factory Honda colleague Andrea Dovizioso are on the verge of signing two year contract extensions to keep them with their current team, the Spaniard noted, “I think this is important as it helps us to focus on our racing. I have people that I trust to do this job and it looks like everything is going well.”