2009 season review: Dani Pedrosa

An injury-plagued pre-season for Dani Pedrosa, which included a crash in the Qatar test the month before the opening race of the 2009 campaign at the Losail Circuit, meant the Repsol Honda man was fighting to be fit for the start of the MotoGP World Championship.

A weakened Pedrosa could only finish 11th in the first race, and doubts were raised over whether he could compete in the early stages of the season. Successive podium finishes in the next three races in Japan, Spain and France – from pole position at Le Mans – seemed to answer those questions.

However, the physical problems Pedrosa had encountered appeared to still linger as crashes in Italy and at Assen sandwiched a sixth place at Catalunya, as Pedrosa struggled to maintain a challenge for the top spots. He lay in fifth place after Assen, well off the pace of the top three.

The perfect response came in the next race at Laguna Seca however, as Pedrosa rose from fourth on the grid to take his first win of the season, leading from start to finish as he displayed blistering pace to finish ahead of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Further podiums came, as well as a crash at Indianapolis which limited Pedrosa to 10th place after he had led the early part of the race, before a strong finish to the season.

In Malaysia, Pedrosa recorded his first podium in the wet as he finished second, and the season was rounded off in fantastic style with a win at Valencia to make sure of third spot in the standings for 2009. The Spanish rider continues aboard the factory bike of the Repsol Honda team in 2010 and will be targeting a challenge for the top two spots in what will be his fifth season in MotoGP.