Pedrosa avoids further injury in crash

The Spaniard has been plagued by an incessant string of injuries since his accident at the Sachsenring last summer, but had managed to score several podiums and bring himself into title contention this year despite being sidelined for much of the winter.

However at Mugello on Saturday he suffered a further fitness problem when he severely jarred his right hip when his Honda jolted during a slide. That hampered Pedrosa's performance for the rest of the weekend, and there were fears he might have done further damage when he tumbled through the gravel after a low-side in the rain-affected race.

Although he was clearly in a lot of discomfort when the bike came to rest following the accident, Pedrosa says he avoided any additional injury, and is now keen to get to the bottom of the hip issue.

"It's quite hard to find anything very positive to say right now, but I'm glad that I didn't do any more damage when I crashed - that's something," he said.

"I want to check it again with my doctors and have a bit of rest - I feel really tired now. Despite this setback we'll keep working. It's my home Grand Prix next and I just hope I can go there and be in contention."

He said the race had been extremely difficult given his condition.

"It's obviously been a pretty bad weekend for us and the crash in the race just about summed it all up," Pedrosa said. "After the problem with my right leg I had a pain-killing injection for the warm-up and it allowed me to ride the bike, but to be honest there was still a lot of pain and I couldn't ride at full speed.

"The rain didn't help either because all the practice sessions were dry so the wet settings were a bit of a gamble.

"Anyway, I want to thank Doctor Costa and his assistants for all his help that allowed me to be on the grid. I had another injection before the race but the conditions were very hard to read and it was difficult for me to gain confidence or find a rhythm - also the bike change wasn't easy for me because of my leg."

Pedrosa is now 33 points behind championship leader Casey Stoner following his latest setback.