Pedrosa sidelined in Australia

From motogp.com

Strong winds throughout qualifying for the Iveco Australian Grand Prix made for a challenging afternoon's riding for the MotoGP class at Phillip Island, and after riding in both the morning practice and QP sessions on Saturday Dani Pedrosa reluctantly decided that he had not recovered sufficiently from the injuries he sustained two weeks ago to take part in Sunday's race.

Making his return to riding this weekend after fracturing his collarbone in Japan a fortnight ago Pedrosa completed 42 laps of the Phillip Island track in Saturday’s two sessions, bringing his lap time down to a creditable 1:33.383, which qualified him in 15th position on the grid.

However, the considerable discomfort still being felt due to his injuries and having found that he lacked sufficient strength and endurance to handle his RC212V at the challenging Phillip Island circuit Pedrosa and HRC took a joint decision that he would not race on Sunday, and will aim to come back stronger at Estoril in two weeks’ time.

“After the operation in Spain my target was to come back in Australia. But having ridden in the three practice sessions here it’s clear that it is really impossible for me to maintain a high pace because I lose strength in my arm lap-by-lap and controlling the bike gets increasingly difficult – even more so with the strong winds here,” said Pedrosa.

“Phillip Island is a very fast circuit, I have to grip the handlebars very tightly, and this makes me very tired and gives me a lot of pain. To ride around three seconds off the pace in the race tomorrow and maybe collect just a few points wouldn’t make much sense. But I think it has been worth it to at least try to ride here because we really didn’t know how I would be on the bike until we tried.

“Now, though, I don’t want to take more risks so that I can recover in time for Estoril. I discussed the situation with HRC Team Director Kazuhiko Yamano and we have the same opinion.”