Pedrosa cautious ahead of Le Mans but happy to be back

Dani Pedrosa will make his return from injury this weekend at Le Mans and with the Spaniard having missed three races due to his recovery from arm pump surgery his recovery is one of the biggest questions marks of this weekend.

The Repsol Honda rider was in good spirits as he talked to the media but he was cautious about setting targets for this weekend and said that it could take a few races before we know for sure how positive his recovery has been.

“In general the recovery is always busy with many hours spent in therapy,” said Pedrosa. “I couldn’t recover at the speed that I wanted because some days I had different feelings to others and I would have to wait some hours for the next therapy session. I’m happy to be back for this race. I had one session on a Supermoto bike before Jerez but after that I had another session last weekend. I wasn’t stressing myself in that session, I was only looking to have a ride. I wasn’t on a big track but it was on asphalt. I wanted to see how my arm was afterwards and if there was swelling or any problems.”

The surgery, a highly invasive solution to arm pump, was undertaken in Spain after the season opening Qatar Grand Prix and it is one that other riders, such as Julian Simon, have had to undergo. Given that he has sat on the sidelines with minimal bike training to test his arm Pedrosa cautioned that nothing will be clear about his recovery until another few races take place.

“The doctor after the surgery told me that he was happy with how the  surgery went and he could see that there was some issues there but obviously I won’t know exactly until I ride the bike again. I think that it’s going to be a few races before I know how the situation is. The first race I mightn’t be in the perfect condition for riding or whatever so I don’t think that tomorrow or Sunday will be the perfect scenario to know and it might take a few races to know.

“I was riding last year in difficult conditions and I was trying to do all the therapy to try and improve but after Qatar I knew that it wasn’t the way that I could ride and it was so demanding mentally because I knew that I could do better and at the end I needed to choose between finding a solution and deciding to race on.”