Starting his fourth season in the factory Repsol Honda Team, Spanish ace Dani Pedrosa flies to Qatar determined to take part in the opening event of the year. The tough 24-year-old has made encouraging progress since undergoing surgery on his left wrist and left knee at the beginning of March and is cautiously confident that he will have sufficient flexibility and strength in his left leg to compete in Sunday’s 22-lap race.
While Pedrosa is not expecting to be at his peak this weekend, having missed out on significant fitness training time and been absent for several days of pre-season practice, the three-time World Champion is nevertheless fully focused on beginning his 2009 campaign by pushing for the best result possible.
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“First, I’ve got to say I’m really happy to be going to Qatar for this race. It’s clearly been quite a difficult winter for me and not the preparation for the season that we would have chosen. But my recovery from the surgery in March has been good - probably a little better than we expected - and that means I have the chance to make the first race, which is great” he said. “Obviously I haven’t been able to do the usual level of physical training while I’ve been injured, and we’ve missed out on some testing time, so we have some catching up to do. But I know my team hasn’t been standing still while I’ve been away and I’m really looking forward to getting back on the bike and riding for the maximum result possible for my situation.”
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On the other side of the Repsol Honda garage is Italian star Andrea Dovizioso who will be making his race debut as a works Honda MotoGP rider this weekend. The former 125cc World Champion has quickly adapted to life in Repsol Honda colours and has enjoyed a profitable winter testing programme, ably dealing with the extra demands of being a factory rider. He’ll be relishing his first race outing on the works-specification RC212V at a circuit he performed so well at last year in his debut MotoGP race. On that occasion, Dovizioso finished in fourth place, one place behind his new team-mate Pedrosa, and ahead of 2008 World Champion Valentino Rossi.
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