German MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa thrilled with early form

Dani Pedrosa got an early confidence boost in Germany today after he ended first free practice with the quickest time.

Pedrosa has been normally slow out of the blocks in 2010 with the Spaniard struggling at times to quickly find a set-up with his factory Honda RC212V.

But he had no such issue today at a scorching hot Sachsenring circuit, the 24-year-old producing a series of fast laps in the final ten minutes that secured him top spot.

The triple world champion ended with a best time of 1.22.521 to finish 0.274s clear of factory Ducati rival Casey Stoner and he said: “It’s great because for the first time this season I’ve got the best time on Friday and this is a very positive step for us.

“We normally struggle initially, but today we did a very good job in first practice and I’m very happy for this. It’s also a good result because tomorrow it could rain and so it was very important to get the basic set-up fixed on the first day here.

“I hope we will have one more practice session in the dry tomorrow, but it looks likely that at least one session will be wet.

“Today we were focused mainly on trying the different Bridgestone tyre compounds available for the race, and we were able to be fast with the soft and also with the hard option.

“For tomorrow we need to keep working on the suspension and the electronics because I think we can still improve in some parts of the lap.”