Pole sets Pedrosa up for welcome challenge

Dani Pedrosa’s consistent form of late continued into qualifying on Saturday at Misano as the Spanish rider took pole position for the Gran Premio Aperol di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini with another impressive display.

The only rider to get under 1’34” so far this weekend with a best time of 1’33.948 the Repsol Honda man is confident as he heads into Sunday’s Round 12 race. Pedrosa is also aiming to break a personal barrier by winning his first consecutive MotoGP races, having already won three times in a season in the premier class for the first time.

“I’m happy to be on pole position because we were strong throughout practice and things have gone according to plan so far this weekend,” said the 24 year-old, for whom this is a fourth pole of 2010. “We are doing a very good job at the moment, improving at every round and now we have the chance to have another good race. I’ve never won two MotoGP races in a row and this is a good challenge for me - I really want to go for it.”

Pedrosa was involved in a close fight for pole position with rival and Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo, and went one better than achieving his aim of just getting onto the front row.

“Today went well especially because this was a very tight qualifying session and, as I said yesterday, it was crucial to be on the first row of the grid to have the best chance of getting through the first corners cleanly, because they are very tight,” explained Pedrosa. “It’s quite a tricky circuit and tomorrow it will be important not to make any mistakes - particularly on the brakes - in order to keep a high pace for the whole race distance. I think it will be very difficult to make a gap, but we’ll wait and see what t he strategy is for the race.”

Pedrosa has victory in his sights however and added: “Hopefully we can get through the first corners cleanly, and then we will simply need to push very hard to win. We have a good opportunity.”