Sachsenring MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa unnerved by crash

MotoGP world championship leader Dani Pedrosa brushed off a fast crash in this afternoon’s second free practice session in Germany that left him only fifth on the overall timesheets.

The Repsol Honda rider, who goes into Sunday’s 30-lap clash holding a four-point lead over Valentino Rossi, lost the front-end of his factory RC212V machine at the tricky left-hand corner at the bottom of Sachsenring’s famous downhill section.

Pedrosa, who has only finished off the podium once in 2008 so far, said: “This morning we started out working on set-up and tyre choice, as usual. I had a good feeling and the tyres were working well with a track temperature of 29 degrees.

“In the afternoon I crashed at Turn 12, maybe because I braked too late, but the crash was without any real consequence. After that I used my second bike but I couldn’t find the same feeling, so I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted.

“Tomorrow we will try to improve our settings and do some longer runs on tyres. We have to see how hot it will be, because the track temperature can get very hot here, this afternoon it was already more than 40 degrees.”