British MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa’s title hopes suffer big blow

Dani Pedrosa’s 2010 MotoGP world title aspirations suffered a severe blow at Silverstone yesterday.

The Spaniard could only finish the 20-lap race in a lowly eighth position to fall 42-points behind fierce Spanish rival and British MotoGP winner Jorge Lorenzo.

Pedrosa made a typically fast start to lead Lorenzo but a big front-end slide at the Abbey Corner saw him drop to fourth.

The 24-year-old continued to struggle with a lack of front-end grip and he gradually slipped down the rankings.

He lost fourth place to Nicky Hayden on lap three and was powerless to prevent Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Ben Spies from relegating him to sixth on lap nine.

Former world 250GP champion Marco Simoncelli also moved by Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda on lap nine.

And a miserable afternoon was completed when he was unable to fend off a hard charging Casey Stoner, who rode superbly to recover from a dreadful start.

Pedrosa, who had given his title challenge a major boost with victory in Mugello two weeks ago, could not hide his disappointment and he said: “Well, eighth is obviously a disappointing result because we were looking quite strong here and I was confident.

“However, we were lacking some grip from the beginning of the race and we couldn’t replicate the pace we were able to achieve in practice.”

Pedrosa, who suffered two big crashes at Silverstone. Blamed front and rear grip issues and added: “The rear was spinning and sliding quite a lot and the front was pushing which meant that, even though I was pushing really hard, I wasn’t able to maintain my pace.

“It was frustrating because I could see the riders in front and I could stay with them but it was impossible to fight for position.

“The one positive thing from the weekend is that even though I had two crashes I wasn’t injured and I didn’t feel pain during the race today.

“This means we can quickly put this weekend behind us and move on to the next races – the first one being Assen next weekend.”