Pedrosa stays cool despite Redgate crash

After a painful test crash on the Monday after his tremendous Barcelona win less than a fortnight ago Repsol Honda´s Dani Pedrosa hit the deck again in the second Friday free practice session at Donington, but the cool-headed Catalan remains typically unflustered.

While his team-mate Nicky Hayden was the second quickest rider of the day, demonstrating good pace on the updated pneumatic valve engine version of the RC212V, Pedrosa again stuck to his standard version of HRC´s 800cc factory prototype but ended up sixth on the timesheet - nearly a second off quickest Friday rider Casey Stoner´s pace.

Pedrosa had been going well in the cool, blustery conditions, running third fastest in the afternoon before he highsided at Redgate corner, taking another knock on his already painful back and bashing one of his feet.

The resilient 22 year-old, who currently lies a close second in the 2008 points standings and wants to keep the pressure on Valentino Rossi this weekend, immediately returned to the pits to continue riding with his second machine.

Wary of a possible change in weather conditions in England´s Midlands region on Saturday Pedrosa commented, `We were trying to concentrate for our usual two days of work on set-up and tyre choice into today because the weather forecast says it may rain tomorrow. I felt quite sore when I got on the bike this morning and I feel a bit sorer now.´

`I think maybe we were using a rear tyre which was too hard when I crashed,´ continued the talented young Honda rider, `but I didn´t do anything serious in the fall, so I got back out on the track as quickly as I could because I wanted to do as much work as possible before the rain comes. We are still struggling a bit here. We have some ideas for tomorrow, so we hope we can get as much dry time as possible.´