Pedrosa pulls rank as 250cc test ends at Catalunya

World Champion Daniel Pedrosa stamped his authority over his 250cc class rivals
with a late surge of speed on the final day of tests at Catalunya on Thursday.
With the MotoGP teams set to take over preseason development duties at the
Barcelona venue on Friday morning, Pedrosa rode his quarter-litre Honda until
track closure at 6pm today and posted the fastest lap with his very last effort,
dipping under record pace with a time of 1'46.248 as the chequered flag was waved.

Despite having dominated the time sheets for much of the day, Pedrosa seemed to
have conceded bragging rights to Aprilia's Sebastian Porto, the runner-up from
last season. The two riders were the last men out on track as they battled for
supremacy in an entertaining end to the day, but the Argentinean was unable to
improve on his previous best and was forced to settle for second place after the
Spaniard's late effort.

"It was a difficult day today because we've had problems with the carburetion of
the bike, as we did yesterday," explained Pedrosa, who ran up 99 laps today - a
total bettered only by his Honda team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama, who completed a
marathon 104 circulations of the 4727m track.

"We also had a few problems with the front tyre and it seems as though they
didn't bring enough here, but I guess that was the same problem for all the
riders. These problems disrupted our programme a little but in the afternoon
it was a lot better. We parked the number one bike and worked solely on the
spare, which I felt more comfortable with, and we got the time down in the end.
Hopefully we can solve the problems at Jerez next week."

Randy de Puniet completed the third highest number of laps and ended the test
with the third fastest time ahead of Aprilia colleague Alex de Angelis and
Honda's Jorge Lorenzo, who completed the top five. The 250cc teams now head
south from Catalunya through Spain to the Jerez circuit in the region of
Andalucia, where they will continue testing from 23-24 March.

Several MotoGP riders were on hand to watch the 250cc session today as they
finalise preparations for their first official confrontation of the preseason,
which starts on Friday morning at 10.00h and runs until Sunday. The highlight of
the weekend promises to be a timed 40-minute session on the final day, when the
fastest rider will be handed the BMW Award - MotoGP Test and will drive away in
a brand-new BMW 1-series car.

INFO 2005/10. 17-03-2005
DORNA COMMUNICATIONS
www.motogp.com