Aragon MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa admits he felt pressure after Misano blow

The Spaniard's title aspirations suffered a massive blow in the preceding Misano race when, following a confused start procedure, he was forced to start from the back of the grid and was then wiped out while trying to fight his way through the order.

Pedrosa revealed the subsequent media storm, meetings with race direction and his own mental doubts had all been hard to conquer heading into the weekend.

"It was tough, a hard weekend overall after all the problems from the last race," he said.

"It was hard to keep calm: [there was] the discussion with race direction, the cold conditions, the rain [on Friday and Saturday], and then all the things in my head from the last race.

"Then I had a crash [in qualifying] and broke one bike, which also made it hard for my team."

Despite the litany of distractions, Pedrosa was peerless in the race, setting a relentless pace en route to a 6.4-second victory over title rival Jorge Lorenzo, who he now trails by 33 points with four races remaining.

"Today it was good, we did a good race," Pedrosa said. "I was calm and could focus well.

"Jorge started very fast and I had to push to stay with him in the beginning, but then I saw I could go faster so I passed him and tried to pull out [a] gap.

"The bike was working very well. We had some problems with the clutch into corners but I could still ride very well through [them].

"I'm happy to win here in front of my fans and my family. This victory is for all my team."