Pedrosa surprised by his own competitiveness

Recording his second podium in a week at the Gran Premio bwin.com de España on Sunday was a big surprise for Dani Pedrosa even after he qualified in second position for the third race of the year.

The 23 year-old from Barcelona is making great progress with his knee and arm injuries having had surgery due to a preseason crash shortly before the start of the 2009 World Championship.

Having caused a surprise with his great podium for Honda at their home race in Japan last week he looked like he had a good chance of a win on Sunday in Spain as he led the race for the first 17 laps.

His lack of time on the Repsol Honda RC212V over the winter means the Spanish rider is still waiting for the bike to be brought up to the development level he has recently demanded from HRC, but Pedrosa was highly competitive in Andalusia on Sunday, beating third placed rider Casey Stoner by seven seconds.

“It is quite amazing because I didn’t expect to be on the podium,” Pedrosa claimed. “I knew that the Yamaha riders would be very, very strong here, and we are not even really ready to get these results yet so that’s why I’m surprised and my team are also surprised. We are all very happy.”

“Last week was just unbelievable, but this result also, because of being on the podium here in front of my fans. I had the opportunity to win. In Motegi it was different but here I was leading the race so I’m very pleased,” he added.

Commenting on his ability to fight for the championship, having moved up to joint third place in the standings, Pedrosa concluded, “We know that we have some problems and some issues that we would like to improve on, but after the difficult winter we had we have to be calm and move forward slowly.”