Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa admitted to being surprised by the pace of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi in today’s Brno MotoGP and had to manage some front-end chatter to take victory.

The little Spaniard was the shock victor in the Czech Republic as the track’s nature, plus the low track temperature, put the works YZR-M1s as the package most likely to conquer Marc Marquez but Pedrosa was the man to end his team-mate’s season-ling winning streak.

“I made a good start but was not able to get through in the first corner past the Ducatis. Jorge was really strong and pass us all, opening up a gap. I could see it was important to pass the Ducatis and I managed to do it and then I pulled back the gap which was key. I kept my rhythm and the bike was working which I managed to the end,” said Pedrosa, speaking at the track.

“I don’t think in practice the Yamahas showed what they could do later on in the race so it was a surprise. Basically, it was important to have the first win of the year. We are here to try and win races, and every weekend you put the best effort and Marc put a super effort in the first ten races, it was difficult to do any better than him.

“Finally when you can do what you work for the feelings are very special. I was a little bit struggling with the front with chatter at the end but our pace was still going at the end.”