Pedrosa celebrates his birthday with a race win in Aragón, Rea finishes 7th

In an intense battle between the two Championship contenders, it was Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa who emerged as victor, for the fourth time this season. His team mate, Jonathan Rea, took an impressive 7th in just his second MotoGP outing.

After an early crash in yesterday's qualifying session, Dani's team had to completely rebuild the bike to prepare for today's 23 lap race and the dominant victory was the best present for himself and his crew on his birthday weekend.

Starting from second on the grid, Dani took the lead on the seventh lap, after setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 3 (1'49.109) and running consistently in 1'49's he pulled away from Lorenzo until crossing the finish line with more than a 6 second gap. Pedrosa is now 33 points behind Lorenzo in the World Championship standings with 4 rounds remaining.

Jonathan Rea completed his second strong race for the Repsol Honda Team. The British rider, who is replacing injured Casey Stoner, maintained a consistent gap to Honda rider Alvaro Bautista but was unable to chase him down.

Honda lead the Constructors Championship by 6 points as they head to their home Grand Prix in Motegi, Japan. It will be confirmed next week by Honda Racing Corporation if the 2011 World Champion, Casey Stoner, will return for the next round in two weeks time, he remains 3rd in the standings with 186 points.

["It's been a tough weekend in general, with discussions about the last race with race direction and the crash in qualifying yesterday which created a lot of hard work for the mechanics. In the race I remained calm and was able to focus, Jorge began very fast in the early laps but I was able to stay with him and then after a few laps I saw I could increase the pace and I passed him and tried to find my own rhythm. I was concentrating so hard that I almost forgot that it was a race, then I realised there were only 4 laps to go! I had a few issues with the clutch into the corners, shifting down, as I did yesterday, but overall the bike was working well so thanks to all my team for their hard work last night and to my fans and family for their support, this victory is for them all!".

["I'm happy I achieved my goal of reducing the gap to the guys at the front, in the end we managed it by 10 seconds but it was another difficult race as I found myself on my own again. At the beginning I let Alvaro have too big a gap and when I tried to make a push, it wasn't enough and we were only taking tenths out of him but I'm quite satisfied and I've learned a lot. In this race it was quite confusing for me as I was playing with the traction control buttons, the torque settings and the engine braking just to try and figure out what was happening, then there came a point where I told myself just to ride this thing and see what happens. It's been amazing to get this chance and I'm not totally sure what's happening for Motegi but my best wishes go to Casey and I hope he comes back and shows the World the rider he is and ends his final season on a high. I want to thank all of HRC and the Repsol Honda Team for this opportunity and for treating me like one of their own, not like a replacement rider, it's been an amazing experience. This is my tenth year in the Honda family and hopefully I can come back here someday".

La Ciudad del Motor de Aragón
Ctra TE-V-7033, km 1
Apdo de correos 174
44600 Alcañiz, Teruel (Spain)
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