A mechanical fault caused Pedrosa’s fall, which injured his left collarbone in the first free practice. His team-mate, Dovizioso, was second.
The first free practice session of the Japanese Grand Prix has been determined very early by a fall for Dani Pedrosa in which he fractured his left collarbone, which will cause him to undergo surgery in the next few hours. His Repsol Honda team-mate, Andrea Dovizioso, made a good start at Motegi, finishing the day with the second fastest time.
Dani Pedrosa has seen almost all hope of fighting for the MotoGP Championship title disappear this afternoon at Motegi, Japan, after an unfortunate fall on turn 7 – a left-hander – just ten minutes into the first free practice. A mechanical problem with the accelerator of his Honda RC212V – the engine stuck in acceleration – appears to be the cause of the Repsol Honda Team rider’s fall, although the exact fault is still to be confirmed as to the cause of the fall of Pedrosa, who, on realising that he could not brake at this point, opted to throw himself to the floor onto his left side. The hard impact with the floor left him with a double fracture to his left collarbone, an injury which will cause him to undergo surgery to set the three fragments of bone.
Pedrosa and his team finally opted to fly to Barcelona and be treated by his own trusted doctors, therefore the Repsol Honda Team rider will fly out of Tokyo tonight to undergo surgery as soon as possible and begin the recovery process. He will have to wait until he arrives in Barcelona and the assessment of the doctors to decide on whether he will be present or not next week at the Malaysian Grand Prix, although it is envisaged to be very unlikely.
In extraordinary form during the latest stretch of the Championship, Pedrosa was one of the main focuses of attention at the Japanese Grand Prix, after clocking up two wins and two second places in the last four races. With this injury, the Catalan rider sees his amazing progress brought to an abrupt end and he will not be able to compete in Sunday’s race. On the other side of the box, his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso put in a good performance for the Repsol Honda Team, setting the second best time of the day.
The Repsol Honda Team’s Italian rider made a great start at Motegi, taking part in a practice which went from strength to strength, in which, from the start, he rode up amongst the fastest. Heading into the final stretch of the practice, Dovizioso was in fourth place on the timesheets and, five minutes from the end, set his own pace and climbed to first position, stopping the clock with a time of 1 minute, 48 seconds and 387 milliseconds. At the last moment, Valentino Rossi overtook him by 213 milliseconds, relegating him to a final second position.
Dani Pedrosa, fell
“Obviously this has been a really bad day for us. It was a strange crash in only my third lap, in a slow section of the track. I tried to stop the bike as usual but I knew something was wrong and couldn’t avoid going down. After the crash I knew immediately that I was injured because it was very painful. I had a big impact in my left ankle and also my collarbone was broken as I hit the track – so obviously it feels very unlucky because recently we have had really good results. I’ve been very healthy through the pre-season and through the year and we had been working a lot to get to and stay at the maximum level. Another injury to contend with is really not what I needed – I don’t feel as though I deserve it. Anyway, once the doctors had checked everything here, we decided it was best to go back to Spain for the operation. I hope it goes as well as possible and that I can return to racing soon”.
Andrea Dovizioso 1’48.387 sec, 26 laps, 121 km.
“I’m happy with today’s session and especially with the lap time – today we started from a good base. In fact I think that we have a margin to improve further so I’m confident for the rest of the weekend. This is a track with particular characteristics; it has sections of strong acceleration and also parts where you brake aggressively, that’s why it’s important to find a good compromise to control the bike wheeling and get the best acceleration.
I’m also very confident that we can improve because today we used the same tyres throughout the session and I didn’t test the front hard tyre that seems to give an advantage. I’m really sorry for Dani. It’s always very bad for a rider when there are injuries. I was behind him and it was a bad crash. He fell quite hard and stayed under the bike when he slid. I hope he can recover soon”.
