The Repsol Honda star, a bitter rival of
Jorge Lorenzo in 250cc, has finished second at
Jerez for the past two years and fought his way to an impressive third place at the Qatar season opener, despite a pre-season hand injury and technical problems with the new RC212V.
But Lorenzo finished in second place at Qatar then, having recently criticised Pedrosa for failing to congratulate him on his debut ride, pulled an untouchable 0.6secs clear of Dani during Jerez qualifying.
Pedrosa, the 2007
MotoGP World Championship runner-up, would surely like nothing better than to 'remind' Lorenzo and Spain of his capability with victory on Sunday… just don't expect him to openly admit as much.
"I'm happy with today's result, because we have made a big improvement to our performance on qualifying tyres. I didn't really expect to be as high as second, but I'm happy because this is a tight track, so it's particularly important to start from the front row," said Pedrosa.
"Looking at the race, we still need to make a few improvements, working to get the best compromise from the chassis and the tyres. We haven't yet made our final decision on race tyres but the situation is quite clear for us, so everything is fine.
"Tomorrow the atmosphere at Jerez will be fantastic, with maybe more than 130,000 fans watching the race. We know the race will be difficult because there are many fast riders here. We will just try and get a good start and make the most of that," he concluded.
Team-mate
Nicky Hayden will start fourth on the grid.
"We've made a bit of progress, but this afternoon a lot of guys went quicker and we didn't quite have the feeling I was looking for to get the rhythm I need to be dangerous tomorrow," said the American. "Definitely need to try to step it up in warm-up; me, the bike, everything's going to need more speed if we want to be up there."
