Pedrosa to wait on pain killers
Added on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Pedrosa to wait on pain killers
Injury-cursed Dani Pedrosa has conceded that pain killing injections are having minimal effect as he struggles to overcome his terrible form with crashes and keep up with the championship pace setters.
The MotoGP rider has been dogged by injuries since a high speed crash at Sachsenring last season, with a series of crashes preventing the Spaniard from returning to full fitness.
The Repsol Honda man was riding in Barcelona with pain killing injections following his latest crash at Mugello before crashing again in qualifying for the Catalan Grand Prix. Tests revealed no notable damage to his already troublesome hip following his latest crash and Pedrosa is expected to race in Assen this weekend.
The 23-year-old will however wait until the final minutes before deciding on further injections after claiming that constant use of pain killers effectively renders them infeffective.
“Since the race in Barcelona I’ve basically been resting, trying to give my hip as much chance to improve as possible,” said Pedrosa. “Obviously there hasn’t been a lot of time – just over one week – but I certainly feel a lot better now than immediately after the last race when I was totally exhausted.
“I’m feeling positive about the weekend and we’ll just have to see how it goes when riding starts on Thursday,” said Dani. “My intention would be to ride without receiving any pain-killing injections because gradually they lose their effectiveness and they are not something I want to rely on – we’ll see how the feeling is when I start to ride.”
Pedrosa, currently fifth in the championship, does at least have good memories of Assen, winning there as a 16-year-old in the 125 championship.
“Assen is a track with good memories for me because I won my first GP here and I’ve had quite a few podiums here too,” he added. “The recent changes where they shortened the circuit have removed some of its character but it still requires a lot of commitment to ride it well – especially through the fast direction changes where you need an agile machine set-up.
“The atmosphere is always special here because it’s such a historic place, so I’m looking forward to getting out on track again.”
