After taking his first podium finish with Bridgestone tyres at Honda's home grand prix on Sunday, Dani Pedrosa returned to Motegi for testing on Monday.

The Repsol Honda rider continued his adaptation to the pneumatic-valve RC212V and Bridgestone tyres he has used since Indianapolis, completing 22 laps - with a best of 1min 48.110secs, 0.76secs slower than his fastest race lap - before rain at 13:00 cut the test short.

Nevertheless, it gave Pedrosa and his team a chance to celebrate the Spaniard's 23rd birthday, with a giant cake specially baked for the occasion.

"This morning we mainly concentrated on engine tests, comparing data and performance with some different electronic mapping," said Dani. "It is important for us to keep on learning about this bike, and working to improve the set up of the pneumatic-valve engine with Bridgestone tyres.

"We started testing before 10.00am, but we couldn't do too many laps because it started raining around lunch time. Then came a surprise from the team in the garage, when they produced a big cake for my birthday," he confirmed.

Pedrosa will fly to Australia tonight in preparation for the next round of the 2008 MotoGP World Championship, at Phillip Island this weekend.