In-form Pedrosa confident ahead of Estoril visit

Dani Pedrosa heads into this coming weekend's bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal aiming to maintain his excellent World Championship form, which has taken him to the top of the provisional standings after the opening two rounds of 2008.

Dani Pedrosa heads into this coming weekend's bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal aiming to maintain his excellent World Championship form, which has taken him to the top of the provisional standings after the opening two rounds of 2008.

Having won the final race of last season in Valencia to clinch the 2007 runner-up spot, former 125cc and 250cc World Champion Pedrosa backed up a podium finish in Qatar with a dominant victory in Jerez last time out, to lead the championship with 41 points - despite missing most of the 2008 preseason due to a hand injury sustained during testing in Malaysia in January.

After his victory in Andalusia Pedrosa stayed on in the south of Spain for two days of productive testing which should put him in even better shape for Estoril as he goes in search of what would be a third win in four MotoGP races on Sunday.

Pedrosa is enjoying a great spell of form and is also set to test a new version of Honda´s pneumatic valve engine for the RC212V after this weekend´s race.

At the scene of his dramatic 2006 crash with team-mate Nicky Hayden, Pedrosa was the second rider across the line in the 2007 MotoGP race in Portugal, just 0.175s behind winner Valentino Rossi.

The Spanish Repsol Honda rider looked ahead to round three saying, `The tests we did at Jerez should help us, it was good to get more familiar with the bike and do some more work with Michelin's wider front tyre. At Estoril you need a bike that performs well on the brakes and maintains optimum rear grip throughout the race.´

`It's a tough track from a riding point of view, because you need to be very strong to handle the braking and the bumps and you also need excellent physical endurance,´ continued Pedrosa.

`The most important part of the track is the last corner – it´s a very long turn which influences your speed all the way down the straight – so it´s vital for good lap times. The tarmac isn´t in great shape, it´s bumpy and a bit slippery, but I like the atmosphere, as it´s 100 per cent Spanish!´