Pedrosa excited at Aragón challenge

A new circuit and the continued chase of the Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo have the Repsol Honda rider in a highly motivated mood ahead of the weekend.

Dani Pedrosa is a focused man ahead of this weekend’s Gran Premio A-Style de Aragón where he will be going for a fifth win of the 2010 season. So far the Repsol Honda rider has already doubled his best-ever win tally in a season with his four wins to date, and with victory last time out at the Misano took his first back-to-back premier class successes.

At 63 points off Championship leader and rival Jorge Lorenzo the task that faces him may appear daunting at first sight, but the fact that Pedrosa has recouped 14 points in the last two rounds and still has 150 to ride for in the remaining six races paints a far more open picture.

This weekend will see the 24 year-old face off against Lorenzo on home soil as the World Championship makes its first ever visit to the new Motorland Aragón circuit, a track that Pedrosa scoped out back in July in a private test.

“I’m looking forward to arriving at the Motorland Aragón and trying the new track on the RC212V,” he said. “I did some laps in July with a Honda CBR1000RR street bike and I really enjoyed the layout – I loved the circuit. It’s very different to the ones we are used to racing at in the MotoGP Championship, and so it will be really interesting this weekend. The circuit combines fast and slow corners which are quite technical, and the last straight and finish line section is going to be amazing. There are also some blind turns where you need to look for the references outside the track. The facilities are very high spec and it looks like the fans are in for a treat at this race.”

Pedrosa has finished second to Lorenzo in both the Spanish rounds so far this year at Jerez and Catalunya, and arrives at Aragón with a renewed confidence following his recent dominant run of form.

“It’s always very nice to race in Spain and I can imagine that the atmosphere will be incredible; I’m looking forward to meeting the Spanish fans again,” he said. “The team and I also arrive in a very good mood thanks to the great job we have been doing and our good results in the last races. It will be a challenge for everybody this weekend and we need to make the most of the practice sessions – in this area we have improved a lot in the second part of the season. Our bike has been working well at very different circuits, so I hope we can also do a good job in Aragón. I’m really looking forward to this Grand Prix.”

It is not just Pedrosa and Lorenzo who are competing closely having both now taken 12 premier class victories in their careers. After the former’s win at Misano Honda and Yamaha have taken exactly the same number of MotoGP victories during the four-stroke era at 59 each.