Dani Pedrosa happy despite crash

Home favourite Dani Pedrosa declared himself happy with his form on the opening day of the Catalunya GP, despite a crash in this afternoon’s second free practice session.

The Spaniard, who is 12-points adrift of series leader Valentino Rossi going into Sunday’s 25-lap race, crashed with ten minutes of the second session remaining.

He had just gone to the top of the timesheets with a best lap of 1.43.107.

The Repsol Honda rider said: ““We started practice this morning using the set-up from Mugello. We tried various different chassis settings and we also tried a few different tyres for the race.

“This morning the asphalt was quite dirty, and although the track conditions improved a bit this afternoon the surface was still dirty off-line. Also, this track is quite bumpy, from the F1 cars.

“Late this afternoon I crashed at turn five. There’s a joint in the asphalt there, I hit the bump and lost the front. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt and I was able to continue riding.”