Pedrosa puzzled by race issues

Pedrosa fell and suffered bruising to his legs near the end of qualifying, then had another crash during this morning's warm-up.

In the race he attacked Jorge Lorenzo for the lead on the opening lap, but later fell off the pace and drifted back to eighth by the finish.

He could not completely understand what had gone wrong, saying that the bike's handling had taken him by surprise.

"I don't know really, I had some very strange feelings on the bike," said Pedrosa.

"I started and I was good on the first lap, and then I just tried to push and I had a big front slide.

"I continued, and then on the second lap I saw already that my rhythm was not like the leaders, so I tried to push harder and I started to close the front end.

"I relaxed a little and I tried to wait till the end of the race to see if it got better. But as soon as I was getting to the middle of the race I started to lose grip and all the others just came by and passed me."

He acknowledged the possibility that the crashes were at the root of his race day issues, but was not convinced there was any link.

"I tried not to, but I'm sure something affected me," Pedrosa said.

"It's on your mind, but I just tried to keep pushing - it was more the feeling I had on the bike that was strange."