Pedrosa: 'I cannot continue racing this way'
Dani Pedrosa looks to have put his MotoGP career on hold while he seeks urgent medical advice after suffering renewed arm pump problems in Sunday's season-opening Qatar race.
During an surprise open air statement in the Losail paddock the Repsol Honda star - who qualified second on the grid, but dropped to sixth in the grand prix - revealed that two previous operations to solve the loss of feeling and strength in his right forearm have failed.
The concern now is that a further operation may actually make the problem worse, yet Pedrosa says he "cannot continue racing and performing this way". The immediate question - no questions were allowed from the media after his statement - is if Pedrosa will ride at the forthcoming Austin round.
Judging by Pedrosa's words and demeanour, which was in total contrast to his joy after qualifying, that seems unlikely...
"Basically in this race I had an arm pump issue," Pedrosa began. "It's been now for completely one year. I start to have a lot of problems here [in 2014] so last year I struggled in every single race. I couldn't really perform well since then. My results have never been that good due to this fact.
"I've been trying all this time to fix it and to improve. It wasn't easy. I couldn't really get any good answers. I went through one surgery [after Jerez 2014]. It wasn't successful. I tried not to say in public, obviously it wasn't an easy thing. Honda always knew about it.
"This winter I was travelling all around, trying to get many different opinions from several doctors. Trying to know if I can have a new surgery, trying to be ready for this championship. Fortunately all the answers recommended me not to have a surgery due to the risk of the surgery in that arm [making the arm pump worse]. I tried to follow this advice and work a lot in the non-aggressive [treatment].
"Which brings me back to today. We had this bad situation. I knew I wasn't feeling very well but anyway there was no other option for me. Now that the race is over and I can see that I cannot perform as I know I can, I have to decide to find a way to solve this problem.
"I cannot continue racing and performing this way. So my plan now is to try to fix my arm. I don't know exactly what is going to be. Because as I said the doctors don't know what to do. I will try to get rid of this problem. The team knows about it.
"Not so many answers for the moment. Everything is quite uncertain, obviously. I hope to have news soon. I will start again travelling and finding some results [from doctors]. I want to finish by saying thanks to all my sponsors to support me in this hard time of my career and all my fans. Obviously it's not the best situation from my side, but thanks to them for sticking with me."
Pedrosa, 29, joined Repsol Honda and MotoGP in 2006 and has won 26 races, making him the most successful rider not to win the premier-class title. The Spaniard took one win last season, at Brno.
