Pedrosa Keeps Pressure on Lorenzo

Dani Pedrosa’s best season in his MotoGP career continued with a vital win in yesterday’s Indianapolis round to keep the pressure on fellow Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo in the 2012 title hunt.

The Repsol Honda rider dominated a dull 28-lap race and his second win of the campaign cut Lorenzo’s advantage to 18-points with just seven races remaining.

Pedrosa has only finished off the podium once in 2012 and his second win in the last four races continued his impressive run of consistent results.

The triple world champion is the only rider to score points in all 11 races so far and after claiming his 66th premier class podium to move level with HRC team-mate Casey Stoner, he was quizzed on whether he was riding in the form of his career.

He said: “I don’t know. But I know I’m doing all I know to be fast. It’s not always easy, but I hope I can continue like this until the end of the year and keep strong. If you look at the points I think in the last four races, I did one point more than Jorge, so it’s going to take a lot of effort until the end. And I have to keep focused all the way. We recovered five points and this weekend for Jorge wasn’t easy with the bike or the tyres and still he was able to be second. So we have a tough competitor and sure until the end it will be a very tight fight. But I hope I can continue in the same way until the end and have good luck.”

Pedrosa did have one scare while running away at the front when he almost crashed at Turn 2 on lap 18.

He was leading Lorenzo by five seconds but saw his advantage slashed by 1.2s and he said: “I make a mistake in Turn 2, the gears get back into neutral. So when I shift again to first, the bike kicked, had a good kick on me and I almost lost control. But I kept the bike on the track. I lost one second that lap. I could get back on my rhythm and get back on the lead with good pace.”

Pedrosa eventually won by a commanding advantage of 10.823s with Lorenzo second and Andrea Dovizioso claiming a fifth rostrum in the last seven races.

For nine pages of coverage from the Indianapolis MotoGP race, see the August 22 issue of Motor Cycle News.