Pain in the neck for Pedrosa
Dani Pedrosa's final day of testing at the new Austin circuit in Texas was hampered by a neck strain, which restricted the MotoGP title runner-up to just 25 laps.
The Spaniard - who had closed to within 0.123s of rookie Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez during the second day of testing - trimmed a further 'tenth' from his best lap time on Thursday, but was left 0.617s behind Marquez.
"After the first exit this morning I had a pain in my neck, I'm not sure what caused it but it affected my riding so I decided not to do so many laps today," confirmed Pedrosa.
"Everything has gone well though in general, we had three positive days and I'm happy we came here, because we were able to put in many laps of this circuit which is very tricky and difficult. There are some heavy braking points and some blind corners, so it was important to test here to find the references.
"We weren't able to try much in terms of settings, because we didn't know the track and the surface wasn't 100% with so few riders here, but we've been improving. We only tried the soft compound tyre, but in general the feeling is positive.
"I'd like to thank Honda for making the effort to come here, it has been valuable and I am very grateful!"
Pedrosa will next be on track for the third and final official pre-season test, at Jerez from March 23-25.
