Repsol Honda will have to make to with another MotoGP->ke2192 race without ace rider Dani Pedrosa->ke1458 after the Spaniard confirmed that he would not be racing at the Jerez round of the 2015 MotoGP season on May 3, 2015.
Pedrosa wrote in his blog on the team’s official website that he hasn’t fully recovered from the arm pump surgery he had a few weeks ago. He also confirmed taking part in a supermoto bike to test out the arm and while the ride went about as well as he could’ve hoped, the timing just didn’t seem right.
Now that he’s ruled himself out of the Spanish GP, Hiroshi Aoyama will continue to take his place on the team for the third race in a row. Aoyama hasn’t given the team any points in the past two races so you can be sure that he’s going to have a lot of pressure on his shoulders to score some badly needed points for the reigning champions.
But not everything is doom and gloom for Repsol Honda these days. Defending champion Marc Marquez has confirmed his participation in the race a week after having surgery on his left hand to repair a shattered proximal phalanx in his left little finger.
Marquez suffered the displaced fracture during a dirt-track training accident last weekend, but after getting a titanium plate inserted into his left little finger, Repsol Honda’s main man will be back in the saddle, determined to jumpstart his and the team’s respective title bids this season.
Right now, Marquez stands 30 points behind points leader Valentino Rossi for the driver’s title so missing this race really was out of the question for the champion. But how he fares with that surgically repaired hand remains to be seen.
Continue reading to read more about Repsol Honda's plans ahead of the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix.
Why it matters
It’s not all bad for Repsol Honda, right? Sure, Dani Pedrosa will miss his third race in a row and his replacement, Hiroshi Aoyama, appears to be overmatched in the world of MotoGP. But the team needs Pedrosa back and fully healthy if it wants to keep its hope of competing in the championship alive. Doing so means letting the Spaniard continue his recovery so he make a probably comeback at the French Grand Prix on May 17, 2015.
It’s a less than ideal circumstance, but at least it’s much better compared to the the initial fears of Pedrosa being forced to retire because of that arm injury. Repsol Honda knows it’s getting its ace rider back sooner than later. That’s a win in it of itself.
On top of that, the team will also have the services of defending world champion Marc Marquez in his home race. A scenario of not having both Pedrosa and Marquez on the grid in Spain seemed certain when the latter suffered that hand injury over the weekend, but give credit to Marquez for getting his hand fixed quickly, which gave him enough time to rehab his hand so that he could race in Jerez this weekend.
Truth be told, Repsol Honda needs to get back into the championship picture. Not having Marquez and Pedrosa in Spain would’ve been another debilitating blow to its title chase. But with Marquez in the field and Aoyama holding the fort for Pedrosa, things are looking up for Repsol Honda.
It still has a long way to go if it hopes to catch Yamaha and Ducati, but right now, getting it’s own house in order has become its top priority. From the looks of things, the team is well on its way to doing just that.