German MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa lucky to avoid oil trouble

Dani Pedrosa admitted he was lucky not to have been caught up in the oil crash carnage caused by Jorge Lorenzo’s factory Yamaha YZR-M1 in Germany today.

Pedrosa, who finished third in today’s close qualifying session behind Lorenzo and Ducati rival Casey Stoner, was not far behind Ben Spies and Randy Puniet as the incident unfolded.

Spies and de Puniet suffered heavy crashes when they were powerless to avoid hitting a large oil trail approaching the first corner after Lorenzo’s YZR-M1 suffered a terminal failure.

Repsol Honda rider Pedrosa said: “I was very lucky because when I came to the first turn I didn’t see the yellow flags or anything else before I closed my throttle.

“I saw smoke and when I saw that immediately I closed the throttle and moved to the right because I thought there was oil on the track.

“And then I saw two bikes on the ground and I couldn’t understand because the smoke was in another place. I was lucky not to be the first one and crash like Randy and Ben after Lorenzo’s problem.”

Pedrosa ended with a best time of 1.21.948 to end up 0.131s behind Lorenzo. It was Pedrosa’s first front row start since the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last month.