Pedrosa Celebrates His 150th GP
Press Release | May 20, 2010
The following is from Honda Motor Sports…Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa is all set to achieve another career milestone this weekend’s French Grand Prix at Le Mans – his 150th Grand Prix event.The Spaniard, who has ridden Honda machinery throughout his motorcycle racing career, has been a full-time GP rider since 2001. He was just 15 years old when he made his GP debut at the awe-inspiring Suzuka circuit, Japan, in April 2001 and scored his first GP podium at Valencia later that year, just days before his 16th birthday. Pedrosa took his first GP victory with his Honda RS125R the following June at Assen and went on to secure the 125cc world title in 2003.If Pedrosa took a while to get up to winning speed when he first joined the GP circus, he was immediately dominant when he graduated to the 250cc class in 2004, winning first time out in South Africa and going on to win back-to-back World Championships aboard his Honda RS250R-W.Promotion to MotoGP was inevitable and Pedrosa took no time at all to make his mark in the premier class, scoring a second-place finish in his first race aboard Honda’s RC211V at Jerez and taking his first win just three races later. That victory at Shanghai made him (at 20 years and 227 days) the youngest rider in history to win races in all three GP classes, ahead of Jorge Lorenzo, Mike Hailwood, Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner.Ever since that first MotoGP win Pedrosa has been consistently at the forefront of the class, scoring race wins every season, with a best championship result of second in 2007 aboard Honda’s new RC212V. He was third overall in 2008 and again last year. He currently lies third overall in the 2010 title chase following his brilliant ride to second place at Jerez earlier this month. Kazuhiko Yamano – HRC Team Director
“This is an impressive landmark for Dani to pass at such a young age and I’d like to wish him well for his 150th Grand Prix this weekend. He is a rider with a very strong mentality who is 100 per cent focused on giving his best performance at every moment, and I’m sure this is why he has already had so much success in Grand Prix racing. For his whole career Dani has been riding Honda machines and he has won three world titles with us, so I’d like to thank him for these achievements and for his dedication to Honda.” Dani Pedrosa
“It’s amazing to be at my 150th Grand Prix, all of them with Honda, because it doesn’t feel as though I have been in the paddock for so long – although it’s still less than half as many races as Loris Capirossi! To be honest, I do not really pay too much attention to statistics like this and for me it is just another race weekend where I want to do as well as possible. But anyway, I’d like to thank my fans for all their support through my career so far and also to the team around me. I hope this can be a special race.”
