Pedrosa's Catalunya lap

Want to know what the riders will face when the Catalunya round of the MotoGP championship takes place on Sunday, June 18, 2006? Then you’ll want to read Repsol Honda’s star Dani Pedrosa’s description of a fast lap.

“The straight is actually quite difficult, it goes slightly uphill, as if you’re reaching the summit and then you go downhill and change up to sixth gear to hit speeds of 320 to 330 km/h (205mph) on average, which is pretty fast. Then you gear down to second for the first corner and do the first and second corner which is a right-left chicane in second gear, everything with soft gas.

Quality Bikes for Sale: Click here.

MCN and user bike reviews: Click here.

Browse over 1800 product reviews: Click here.

From there you enter a third-gear corner which is called – at least I call it – the Curvone. It’s a corner that goes on for a long time and you usually have problems with the tyres here because you slide a lot. You the change up on a kind of mini-straight and enter the next corner which is the Repsol corner, a second-gear corner, where you also slide a lot on the way out.

Next comes a first-gear hairpin. You take the hairpin and come out on a descent, changing quickly up through the gears to fourth – accelerating very hard – before a downhill braking zone for a complicated corner. It’s down two gears to second for a very fast and difficult chicane where the front end always comes up.

Then you change up to third gear for a blind corner. You come out of the corner usually without sliding too much, but you gain a lot of speed and change up to fourth to enter the stadium. This is a really important out-braking spot towards the end of the race. Next there is a very difficult second gear corner where the bike is always sliding, and where you have to be very careful with the throttle. This is where there is always the largest number of spectators. It’s a very, very long corner where you have to turn your head a long way because it seems as if it will never end.

Finally comes the two last corners of the circuit. They are very fast and really very important for lap times, where it is always important to have faith in the front tyre. And then you come out of the last corner, sliding a lot and you start changing up again for the main straight.”