After a good start by the Repsol Honda Team riders to the Italian GP at the Circuit of Mugello yesterday, things got very complicated today, above all for the Spaniard Dani Pedrosa. His teammate, the local Andrea Dovizioso, set the 7th best time in the morning session but at the same time Dani Pedrosa`s rear wheel on the Honda RC212V skidded violently and he almost ended up on the floor. In the incident Pedrosa was thrown upwards but was able to avoid a fall landing back on the seat of the bike but he then felt an intense pain on the right side of his hip.
After the incident he went back to the pits and after resting for a few minutes went back out onto the track, but the pain stopped him from carrying on. When there were 15 minutes left in the second free session the Repsol Honda Team had to end his practice before schedule.
After several tests in the Mobile Clinic, the doctors at the circuit were not able to diagnose the exact extent of the injury, although they ventured that he may be affected by an injury to a tendon in the area at the top of the thigh bone, something which typically produces an intense pain and brings a loss of power in his leg when he is on the bike. With this intense pain the Repsol Honda Team rider started the definitive qualification session the best he could; in the end he suffered a lot to get 8th position, and so tomotrrow he will be on the third row of the grid. Pedrosa did 22 laps, although he was only able to do five laps consecutively.
His teammate Andrea Dovizioso finished 7th, he had problems finding the right set up and must work with his team to improve it for the race tomorrow. He will be alongside Pedrosa on the starting grid. Above all the Italian needs to improve the behaviour of the front end when braking and when taking corners so that he can tackle tomorrow`s Italian GP in the right conditions to get a good result in front of his home crowd.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’50.073 secs, 35 laps, 184 km >> Audio
“Considering what happened today, eighth place on the grid is actually quite good because I was in a lot of pain on the bike and for a while it was touch and go whether I’d be able to ride at all. In this morning’s session I had a slide from the rear tyre and the bike went into quite a violent shake. During this, I pulled a muscle in my right hip really hard and maybe caused some more damage – we’ll have to check what the next scans show. But what I can say is that it was very painful and I had to stop riding immediately because the pain stopped my right leg from working properly – it was like a switch. This afternoon I had some painkillers, but it was still very difficult. It’s very hard to make a prediction for the race – I will try, but at the moment I don’t know for how long I can continue my pace – we’ll see.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’49.648 secs, 48 laps, 252 km. >> Audio
“We have improved our lap time session after session, reducing the gap from the fastest riders and this is a positive move. Yesterday we had a gap of 1.3s, this morning it was one second and this afternoon we got it down to five tenths so I’m happy about that. This morning we made an adjustment to the settings which improved the feeling during corner entry. For the qualifying session we tried another modification but we didn’t get the results we expected, so we’ll need to make some changes to finalise the set-up tomorrow morning in the warm-up. I’m confident we can improve by two or three tenths but it will be difficult to consistently match the pace of the fastest riders. Tomorrow the race will be tough and really I was hoping to start from the second row. Still, I will do my best to get a good start and try not to lose contact with the first group. It’s my home race and the atmosphere here is incredible. The fans are so passionate and so I’ll be going all out to give them something to cheer about tomorrow.”
