A buoyant Dani Pedrosa said he was delighted with Honda's progress on the opening day of MotoGP's Japanese Grand Prix.
Victorious in three of the past four races – with only a first-lap crash preventing him from challenging at Misano – Pedrosa entered Motegi trying to further deplete Jorge Lorenzo's 38-point championship lead. The Spaniard lost out to Lorenzo in first practice, but rallied to top the second and set the fastest lap so far this weekend.
"Today was a perfect day for practice: the track conditions were very good, the warm temperatures helped as did the new surface, so we were able to do the job we wanted," Pedrosa said. "The main target today was to test the tyres and we completed some good laps on both hard and soft compounds.
"The asphalt is new and the grip is quite good, so the lap times are pretty fast from the beginning. We also did some work on the suspension and the mapping to will keep improving on this tomorrow."
With four rounds to run, Pedrosa can still claim this year's world championship but will realistically need to win every race and hope Lorenzo finishes third or lower.