Dani Pedrosa Blog: Already thinking about Austin

Hello all,

I am already back from the first GP of the season and, as you know, we did not get off to the start we would have liked. Even though things went well in the pre-season the first race did not go as we expected. On Sunday we did not quite get the setup right and so we could not finish on the podium.

You could see a lot of sand on the track over the whole weekend and the level of grip was not so good, but on Saturday, and in the warm up as well on Sunday, it seemed that we had enough pace. Then, when the race started, Jorge was very fast from the beginning and behind me Marc and Valentino were pushing hard also. I tried to change my riding-style to protect my position, but there was not enough grip in the rear end. The positive thing is that we have learnt a lot in this race and we are already thinking about the next GP in Austin in two weeks.

As I told you last week the schedule in the Qatar GP is different. Bear in mind that everyday once the work on the track is complete there comes the press-conference, a chat with the mechanics to assess things, etc. In the end you don’t go to bed until half past one or two in the morning. And obviously we get up late the following day and then we had to spend the time in the hotel. This schedule is very different from the one we are used to, and just like footballers and other sportsmen and women it is normal, but time passed very slowly before we went to the circuit, which is where we want to be and what we like.

And speaking of footballers, we were at the same hotel as Raúl González and his family. He came to visit us and watch the race on the Sunday, and we arranged to meet up at the same place next year, to see if we get a better result. For the time being we just have to think about Austin.

By the way, here you have a surprise. We recorded a video in Austin. I hope you like it!

See you next week.

Dani.

Source: Repsol Blog