Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa has sat-out three of the first four rounds of the MotoGP World Championship but has announced overnight he’ll be back for this weekend’s round in France.
Pedrosa opted for surgery to his forearm after the first round of the series to relieve long-standing issue of arm pump and the 4.18km Le mans Bugatti Circuit will be a tough test on the Spaniard, with its stop-and-go nature of some slow corners amid some fast straights.
“I’ve been doing a lot of therapy in the past few weeks since the operation and I am improving step by step,” Pedrosa said. “I’m beginning to feel stronger and looking forward to getting back on the bike – after all, this is the best way to check the feeling after all the rehabilitation work. It will be good to get back to my team and catch up with them all after this time and of course to see all the fans in Le Mans, so let’s hope the weather is kind to us again like in 2014.”
Pedrosa’s teammate and defending world champion Marc Marquez has also been battling injury, breaking his finger in a training accident but says he, too, is almost 100 percent fit.
“Since Jerez we’ve been able to rest and now I’m feeling much stronger for this weekend,” Marquez said. “I visited Dr. Mir for a check-up and my finger is definitely improving and healing well. I haven’t trained much this past week in order to give my finger a chance to restore back to 100 percent, which was our main goal. I like the Le Mans track, the weather is always changeable but last year it was really good and I took my first win in the MotoGP class.”
Marquez currently sits in fourth place in the title chase on 56 points ahead of teammate Pedrosa who is in 14th place on 10 points.