Dani Pedrosa finished second in the Australian Grand Prix

Dani Pedrosa finished second in the Australian Grand Prix, picking up 20 points to move to within 34 of non-scoring teammate and championship leader Marc Marquez with two races remaining in the 2013 MotoGP™ season.

Last year at Phillip Island, Pedrosa crashed and ended all hopes of beating Jorge Lorenzo to the world title. 12 months later, Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) won from Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team), with Marquez disqualified for failing to make his mandatory change of bike and tyres before the end of the tenth lap.

“It was a very exciting race in one way because everything happened so quickly and it was new, but it was a lot of stress from Saturday to know which tyres and how many laps, with the rules changing every five minutes,” Pedrosa commented.

“The team did a good job and I think today they can rest very well. It was satisfying to finish on the podium and especially to be competitive on this track because I am not normally. I am very happy with this and looking forward to the next one. I will try to keep focused to do the best I can.

“I am still a lot of points behind because of the Aragón thing, but hopefully I can do another good job. We will try to keep the same level.”
The remaining events in 2013 are the Grands Prix of Japan and Valencia, which were both won by Pedrosa in the closing stages of the 2012 season.