Repsol Honda´s Dani Pedrosa goes into the eighth GP of the year at Donington on a superb run of form, and with time to recover from a highside crash at the Circuit de Catalunya in testing on Monday after his sensational home win, he is expected to be as competitive as ever on British soil.
Although his team-mate Nicky Hayden could switch to the new pneumatic-valve engine at Donington, Pedrosa will continue with the conventional spring-valve engine for the trip to England. The Spaniard suffered a heavy fall on the first day of post-Catalunya testing and was thus unable to fully acquaint himself with the pneumatic-valve version - and therefore prefers to stay with the machine he is more acquainted with.
“Winning in Catalunya was great but there are still many races to go, so we have to keep pushing,” says the man from Sabadell, just outside Barcelona. “I crashed on the day after my home race, hurting my back and shoulders, but I will be okay for the next one.”
Assessing the peculiarities of the Donington track, Pedrosa continued, “It is quite a strange circuit, quite smooth but not so grippy, and it often rains there. My favourite part of the track is the uphill section all the way to Coppice. I don´t like the last part, it´s very slow and tight. You need a set-up similar to Le Mans, so the bike accelerates hard and brakes well too. You also need as much grip as you can get because the surface is quite slippery.”
“The two different parts of the circuit require different riding styles. The first requires a smooth style, the second a very aggressive style,” he concluded.
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