Pedrosa makes painful practice return

Pedrosa returned to the track today just a fortnight after breaking his collarbone in a Motegi practice crash. He subsequently had surgery to insert a titanium plate on his collarbone to fix the fracture.

The Spaniard completed just seven laps in this afternoon's wet conditions at Phillip Island, but said the short run was just a precaution rather than a sign that he was struggling with his physical condition.

"The plan today was simply to check my condition on the bike - in these conditions I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks," said Pedrosa.

"What I can say is that I had some strength to move on the bike and put pressure on the handlebars which is good. However, I didn't feel very comfortable with the leathers because they were tight and there was pressure - but even with that I could do some laps and tomorrow I will try again - we will go step-by-step.

"Now it's quite painful but we will see how the pain goes through the night and tomorrow we will take another step. We knew it wouldn't be easy but I just hope that the effort is worth it in the end."

While the wet track meant less strength was required to ride the bike, Pedrosa felt the risk of exacerbating his injury was also much greater.

"To ride in wet conditions is more smooth than in the dry, but also more risky," he said. "The asphalt today was very, very cold and here it's a problem because on the right hand turns you don't have any grip at all.

"The hardest point was braking, changing direction and in the right hand corners because I have to stretch my arms a lot - but I hope we can work a little bit on the leathers to make it more comfortable for tomorrow.

"Afterwards I went to the Clinica Mobile and they told me that now I need to relax the muscles. We'll see how it goes tomorrow."