Dani Pedrosa has confirmed he will not contest this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone as he struggles to regain full fitness from a broken right collarbone he suffered in Le Mans last month.
The Spaniard was injured when he was involved in a controversial collision with San Carlo Gresini Honda rider Marco Simoncelli and doubts over his Silverstone appearance intensified when he withdrew from his home race in Catalunya last weekend.
Pedrosa is currently the subject of intense speculation over his current absence with speculation rife in Barcelona that he’d aggravated the recovering right shoulder in a supermoto training accident while testing the strength in the collarbone.
HRC has flatly denied any additional incident took place and their official line is that Pedrosa's recovery is taking longer than anticipated because he had a smaller plate inserted to avoid a recurrence of a complication caused when he had surgery on his left shoulder last October.
It was discovered months later that the plate was actually pinching an artery when his arm was in a certain position, causing a numbness issue in his arm and hand.
The triple world champion said: "After dedicating some time entirely to recover, I have decided not to take part in the British Grand Prix this week. I've done everything I could to be fit in time for Silverstone, but the conditions are not right to return to compete with guarantees."
"I need to feel 100 per cent fit before I get on the bike again and to be sure I can fight for the victory, I don't want to go out there just to do laps. I've raced many times with pain and the experience tells me I'm still not ready to be competitive. I've decided not to take further risks and will instead continue my recovery process so I may return in the best possible way. It's time for me to be logical and not only follow what my heart says, or my desire to return. I want to return as soon as possible, but I want to do it when I have ability to fight to win. It's not the time yet."
Honda is expected to confirm that Hiroshi Aoyama will move into the Repsol squad with Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso at Silverstone with test rider Kousuke Akiyoshi joining Simoncelli in Fausto Gresini’s squad. (Matthew Birt)
Source: http://www.motorcyclenews.com