In 2015, @26_DaniPedrosa came back from 11th to 3rd to place on the podium.
The MotoGP World Championship returns to the Iberian Peninsula this weekend to celebrate the seventh round of the year, after a thrilling race a fortnight ago in Italy. The event at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will be a special one for Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, who will be competing in front of their home fans. Marquez lies second in the World Championship with 105 points -10 points off the lead. He has finished on the podium at 5 of the last 6 Catalan GPs (spread over 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP races). Pedrosa, fourth in the overall standings with 66 points, has been victorious at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in all three classes, as well as taking eight podiums there.
Marc Márquez
“There’s nothing like racing at home in front of your crowd and your fan club to make you feel good and give you extra motivation, even if in the end you must try and be as professional as always and to completely focus on the job at hand. We’ll see how it goes there, and as always we’ll work hard on the bike setup in order to make the most of what we have, an approach that has worked well enough so far. I know that Honda is working at 100% and at Montmeló we’ll give our best to get another good result. Then at the Monday post-race test we’ll see if we’re able to find that half a tenth that could help us a lot, as we were able to do last year on the same occasion.”
Dani Pedrosa
“I’m looking forward to racing at home in Catalunya, at a track I love and where I’ve had some very good results in the past. Last year I took my first podium of the season there, and it was the first race where I really felt I was coming back after the surgery to my arms. I hope to be able to do well again in front of my fan club and my entire home crowd. We’ll work on the bike setup, using what we learned at the last race to see if we can get something extra, trying to keep the momentum from Mugello, which was my best GP so far this season in terms of feeling on the bike during the race. Then we’ll see if we can take a further step forward in the post-race test on Monday.”