Dani Pedrosa begins shoulder rehab

Dani Pedrosa has kicked off his bid to regain full fitness ahead of the next round of the 2011 MotoGP world championship in Portugal next month.

The Spaniard is recovering from an operation last week on his left shoulder to cure a long-standing numbness issue with his left arm and hand.

Pedrosa’s problems began when he badly damaged his left shoulder during a high-speed practice crash for the Japanese Grand Prix at the Twin Ring Motegi.

An operation to plate the collarbone inadvertently caused Pedrosa the numbness issue with the plate compressing his subclavian artery.

The numbness issue struck during the Estoril and Valencia races last season but Pedrosa thought long the winter break had solved the issue.

But the numbness problem resurfaced again when he was fighting for victory with Repsol Honda team-mate Casey Stoner during the season’s opening round in Qatar last month.

Despite the problem, Pedrosa raced heroically to third in Qatar and then scored a brilliant second in the recent rain-hit Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

Pedrosa had a medical check yesterday (Monday) and the doctors who performed the intervention verified that the wound is healing properly, with no infection, and expect to remove the stitches next week.

Pedrosa, who has had five days of rest after the surgery, will start his rehabilitation today (Tuesday), consisting with a first stage of passive exercises of the left shoulder with the help of a physiotherapist.