Pedrosa brushes off crash and looks to improve pace

Dani Pedrosa´s preparations for a Sachsenring repeat did not begin quite as the World Championship leader would have hoped, with a crash in the afternoon session losing him valuable time in the quest to catch up with early pacesetter Casey Stoner.

The Repsol Honda rider lost the front end of his RC212V at the end of the high-speed descent into turn twelve and, although he was unhurt in the crash, upon taking to his second machine he was unable to better his morning time of 1´22.759. He ran away with the victory last year in Germany in scorching heat, but sees high temperatures and making the most of his remaining practice time as the keys to success this weekend in the face of such fierce competition.

`This morning we started out working on set-up and tyre choice, as usual. I had a good feeling and the tyres were working well with a track temperature of 29 degrees,´ said Pedrosa after his fall.

`Maybe the crash was because I braked too late, but it was without any real consequence. After that I used my second bike but I couldn't find the same feeling, so I couldn't go as fast as I wanted.´

Stoner has already gone round faster than Pedrosa´s pole position record from 2006, but the Spaniard is not so focused on matching his rival in the Saturday sessions as focusing on Sunday´s all-important race.

`Tomorrow we will try to improve our settings and do some longer runs on tyres. We have to see how hot it will be, because the track temperature can get very hot here, this afternoon it was already more than 40 degrees,´ he concluded, ready to turn the heat up yet further in the chase for the MotoGP World Championship.