After some excellent practice sessions over the course of the weekend Dani thought his worst nightmare had come true this morning as the rainclouds eventually gave way. Once the race started it had reduced to a drizzle but it was enough for the conditions to be drastically different to previous days, with track temperatures dropping to 19 ºC.

Pedrosa launched into first place off the line but dropped to sixth by the time they crossed the line for the first time. That is where he stayed until nine laps into the race when he launched his first attack, passing both Stoner and Dovizioso. Hiroshi Aoyama, meanwhile, was leading the race until he started to lose ground. Dani smashed the circuit record as he charged through the pack and tucked in behind race leader Jorge Lorenzo, who refused to back down. However, four laps from the end Dani launched another assault and again smashed the lap record, lapping eighth tenths quicker than his best effort from last year with a time of (2’02”554).

Dani now heads to the flyaway races with a 59-point advantage over Casey Stoner and just six races remaining until the end of the season. Hiroshi Aoyama, who finished fifth today, remains seventh in the championship and is level on points with Jorge Lorenzo.

DANI PEDROSA (1st): “We’ve won another great race in difficult conditions. This morning I had a flashback to last season, when I finished third because of the confusion caused by the rain, and I was worried because the track conditions were nothing like qualifying. It was drizzling throughout the race but the temperature dropped a lot and the tyres wore out a lot quicker than I expected, especially the rear. I took things calmly at the start even though I saw that they were getting away a little because it wasn’t the right time to risk anything. In the end I was able to push, keep my pace up even though it was sliding around and set the fastest lap at the end, which is a sign of how well the team have worked.”

 HIROSHI AOYAMA (5th): “At the start I saw that nobody wanted to risk because of the rain so I thought that if nobody wants to try and go then I will. I took the lead a few times but the tyres went off very quickly because of my pace early in the race. They were destroyed by the end of the race but I did what I could. Tomorrow we’ll stay here to test and we’ll try and improve the bike so that we head to Motegi with a winning attitude and ready to give it everything. I would really like to win my home race.”

RACE RESULTS

1. D.Pedrosa (Esp/Hon)  41’24”944
2. J. Lorenzo (Esp/Hon) a 1”303
3. C. Stoner (Aus/Apri)  a 4”253
4. A. D. Angelis (RS/Apri) a 5”326
5. H. Oayama (Jap/Hon) a 8”392
6. A. Dovizioso (Ita/Hon) a 8”471
7. S. Porto (Arg/Apri) a 25”545